Bonds & Big-Tech Battered As Inflation Fears Trump Payrolls Hope

The trend of weaker 'hard' data and hope-filled 'soft' data stalled a little this week as the latter failed to improve...

Source: Bloomberg

But the big theme of the week was 'inflation' appearing to be stickier than many 'soft landing' narratives had accounted for which pushed Fed rate expectations higher on the week (erasing the dovish response to last week's payrolls)

Source: Bloomberg

For the first time since December, the Nasdaq is down for two straight weeks as the smell of fear wafts across the AI-bubble-buyers. The Dow managed gains on the week but S&P and Small Caps joined big tech in the red on the week...

NVDA was the big loser, down over 8% on the week (its biggest weekly loss since Sept 2022... right on schedule...

Source: Bloomberg

'Most Shorted' stocks tumbled for the 2nd straight week, as all squeeze attempts were foiled by selling pressure as the index shifted to negative gamma. In fact, the most-shorted basket is down for 8 of the last 9 days...

Source: Bloomberg

SpotGamma's Gamma Tilt index is decidedly negative...

A chaotic week across markets left VIX lower but VVIX still in the danger zone around 100...

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were up across the curve with the bally underperforming...

Source: Bloomberg

However, extending that a little, we see that bonds have basically roundtripped from before last Friday's payrolls

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended higher on the week, as CPI/PPI sparked USD-buying, erasing the post-payrolls drop...

Source: Bloomberg

Crypto was relatively quiet once again with Bitcoin chopping around the $29-30k range. Solana outperformed...

Source: Bloomberg

Gold and Silver were the week's biggest losers in commodity-land as NatGas soared. Crude was flat and copper slightly lower...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, we noted that spec positioning on US equity futures vs. intermediate sector UST futures is about to take out all time highs...

...and US equities are excitedly divergent from Fed bank reserves...

What could possibly go wrong?