Stimulus Stalemate Sparks Slump In Stocks, Bonds, Oil, & The Dollar

Day after day the algos excited pumped and dumped stocks on the back of ‘hope’ and ‘nope’ headlines about the next round of COVID-19 relief from Washington. By the end of the week, stocks were down, bond (prices) were down, oil was down, the dollar was down, and economic data was down…

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Source: Bloomberg

But all stocks care about is their next “feed” of free money…

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Source: Bloomberg

But apart from that everything is awesome…

Small Caps and Trannies managed gains on the week, Nasdaq underperformed…

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Big round-trip in VIX this week but remained higher on the week…

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FANG stocks fell for the second week in a row…

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Source: Bloomberg

And semis chipwrecked for a second week…

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Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, defensives and cyclicals tracked each other all week as everything was top-down stimulus-on/stimulus-off swings…

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Source: Bloomberg

Significant weakness in momo stocks this week…

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Source: Bloomberg

“Most Shorted” stocks were squeezed Thursday and Friday back to unch on the week…

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Source: Bloomberg

In fact, as yields rose on the week (rallying back lower somewhat today)…

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Source: Bloomberg

Pushing yields to their highest since early June…

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Source: Bloomberg

The curve rose to its steepest since July 2017…

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Source: Bloomberg

Real Yields rose notably on the week but as the chart shows, gold decoupled…

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Source: Bloomberg

The dollar extended its decline (down for the 3rd week in the last 4)…

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Source: Bloomberg

On the bright side, BANKS were bid as the yield curve steepened…

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Source: Bloomberg

And BITCOIN soared back above $13,000…

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Source: Bloomberg

Gold futures ended the week very slightly higher, managing to hold above $1900…

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Oil prices tumbled on the week, with WTI futs closing below $40…

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Finally, this is what the ‘experts’ are panicking about?!!

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Source: Bloomberg

And if some more context for this terrifying killer pandemic is also required…

Covid deaths in context pic.twitter.com/ZxeQVZtmw0

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 23, 2020