Omi-Gone? Stocks Soar As Scariant & CPI Send Bonds, Bitcoin, & The Buck Lower On The Week
It has been two weeks since the deadly (no one has died anywhere in the world) new COVID variant - Omicron - and only The Dow has managed to shrug off the constant fearmongering and panicky policy-making to 'slow the spread' of this "mild" virus...
Small Caps are notably ugly since Omicron was unleashed on the world. But this week saw the S&P rip to its best week since February as Goldman's melt-up appears to have come true...
Today was dominated by CPI - which printed at its hottest in 40 years but was modestly below the whisper number - and that sent yields lower (especially the short-end) and implicitly Nasdaq and S&P (growth) higher as Small Caps (value) lower. Everything went vertical in the last couple of minutes... just like last Friday...
A record close for the S&P 500
This week's gains in stocks were ignited by a major short-squeeze in the first half of the week, but that faded as the week wore on...
Source: Bloomberg
Unprofitable tech stocks rallied for the first weekly gain in a month and biggest weekly gain since early October (but like 'most shorted' it was very much a tale of two halves)...
Source: Bloomberg
AAPL on the other hand appears destined for $3 trillion market cap...
Source: Bloomberg
Amid all the excitement, Defensives actually outperformed Cyclicals on the week...
Source: Bloomberg
VIX was clubbed like a baby seal this week, its biggest absolute weekly compression since February...
Source: Bloomberg
Overall, the bubble markets pumped and dumped this week...
Source: Bloomberg
The moves in VIX and bubble markets reminded us of this...
Bonds were monkeyhammered on the week with the long-end underperforming dramatically (early week saw a heavy corporate calendar)...
Source: Bloomberg
The yield curve steepened this week (for the first time in 5 weeks) by the most since January, but remains notably flatter since Omicron...
Source: Bloomberg
Today saw rate-hike odds shift lower (dovish) but a full rate-hike is still priced-in for June...
Source: Bloomberg
The Dollar ended the week lower, dropping back from unchanged today after CPI...
Source: Bloomberg
Cryptos were ugly this week with all the major coins down, but off the lows of last weekend's flash crash. BTC ended -10%, ETH -4%...
Source: Bloomberg
Interesting in BTC today with a morning pump to tag $50k then the dump...
Source: Bloomberg
Best week for oil since August, snapping a 6-week losing streak
Gold managed very modest gains on the week while silver slipped lower...
Finally, a quick reminder that based on the current rate of unemployment and inflation, The Taylor Rule suggests Fed Funds should be over 9%...
Source: Bloomberg
Oh, and if The White House claims they have saved us all from high gas prices... and somehow this is the average price... tell them to f**k off - regular gasoline has only been higher in price at this time of year once - in 2012 - and even then it was pennies. Despite all the jawboning, gas prices at the pump are dramatically above the average price for this time of year...
Source: Bloomberg
So, apart from non-transitory inflation driving an ongoing collapse in real wages and the $3 trillion real cost of Biden's BBB plan... everything is awesome?!
