Nasdaq Soars To Another Record High As Crude Crashes & The Yield Curve Re-Inverts

Another day, another record high for US stocks led by the Nasdaq – despite more quarantines, more cases, more deaths, and more uncertainty about whether any production of anything is back online.

Nasdaq surged 1% today – for no good reason to a new record high with the S&P 500 – and Trannies ramped into the close to get green

Super-Expensive, high-growth software stocks soared…

Source: Bloomberg

And as Nasdaq roars to another record high, the yield curve re-inverts…

Source: Bloomberg

To clarify:

• Jan 1. Buy stocks cause the global economy is recovering

• Feb 10. Buy stocks cause the global economy is about to suffer the biggest quarterly hit since the financial crisis

…makes perfect sense.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyQarhoz8E]

But the breadth of this stock market rally is becoming thinner and thinner…

Across asset classes – stocks are alone…

Source: Bloomberg

And within equity markets, for a sense of the narrowness, short-term, equal-weight S&P is underperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

And is notably underperforming since the start of the virus outbreak…

Source: Bloomberg

And even more clear, from the Value-Line Geometric Index – which infers the performance of the ‘median’ stock – things are not going as well as the broad market indices suggest…

Source: Bloomberg

European stocks were mixed today with Italy modestly higher and France and Germany lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Chinese stocks continued to grind higher with Shenzhen Composite erasing all the virus losses and ChiNext now up 6% since the start of it…

Source: Bloomberg

MAGA stocks’ market cap surges ever closer to $5 trillion…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX is also not buying what stocks are selling here…

Source: Bloomberg

And credit markets ain’t buying it either…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury bonds were bid (alongside stocks) with the entire curve 3-4bps lower in yield (almost entirely erasing last week’s early-week surge)…

Source: Bloomberg

30Y yields dropped back near 2.00% once again (and 10Y back below 1.60%)…

Source: Bloomberg

The yield curve tumbled back into inversion today…

Source: Bloomberg

And don’t forget the big picture implications of the flattening of the yield curve…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar extended recent gains early on -to 2-month highs – before fading back towards unch…

Source: Bloomberg

Yuan also rallied on the day back stronger than the critical 7.00/USD…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin broke above $10,000 over the weekend, but slipped back lower today…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were mixed with PMs and copper managing to cling to gains as crude was clubbed like a baby seal…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold rebounded off pre-Soleimani levels…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI tumbled back below the key $50 level once again…

And, as we noted last night, oil prices will probably drop to the “mid-$40s” a barrel in the next couple of weeks because of weak demand, according to Matt Stanley, director of Starfuels commodities brokerage.

Supply isn’t an issue but demand is and demand growth is so fragile that an excuse like coronavirus has caused the 15% drop in prices the past few weeks, Stanley told the 7th annual Global Commodity Outlook conference in Dubai on Sunday.

OPEC and 10 allies, including Russia, are debating whether to institute deeper production cuts to stem the price slide, but Stanley said the coalition, known as OPEC+, should instead be looking to increase output to revive demand growth. “Cutting supply to keep prices up is not the way to do it,” he said.

And judging by the collapse in The Baltic Dry Index – back near record lows – oil is going to get to the $30s…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, it seems like the coronavirus has significantly broken the reassuring uptrend in “earnings sentiment”…

“Probably nothing!”

Oh and in case you were wondering, ‘mini’-Mike Bloomberg has surpassed the entire field of Democratic Presidential nominees apart from Bernie…

Source: Bloomberg