Bonds & Bullion Bid As Stocks Skid On Stimulus/Vaccine Stumble

For a few brief moments today, stocks rallied to record highs and all was fixed in the world as leaked “scoops” suggested Mitch McConnell was readying a $900bn COVID Relief Bill that might just work… but then that was dismissed and algos refocused on disappointing vaccine headlines once again…

• 1154ET SOME STATES’ COVID VACCINE ESTIMATES USED OUTDATED FIGURES, STATE FIGURES ASSUMED MORE PFIZER SHOTS WOULD BE AVAILABLE” HHS

• 1200ET McConnell re-evaluating liability protection, to announce $900bn bill at 3pm

• 1215ET McConnell will not be announcing bill at 3pm

“You shall not pass” the bill…

Here’s what that looked like in markets. Nasdaq held gains while Dow and S&P were red with Small Caps trying hard to eke out some gains…

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The Dow battled for 30k in the afternoon before the late-day buying-panic hit…

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After their recent magnificent squeeze higher, Energy stocks were clubbed like a baby seal today as health officials warned of the darkest winter in the history of dark winters (or some such scary bullshit)…

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Source: Bloomberg

Bonds were bid on the day…

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Source: Bloomberg

With 10Y yields erasing the post-Payrolls spike from Friday…

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Source: Bloomberg

And 30Y Yields appear to have topped out at a key level once again…

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Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ended the day modestly higher but well off its overnight highs (seemingly seeing a bid during the Asian market session and offered during Europe’s)…

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Source: Bloomberg

Cable was active all day on Brexit deal headlines but ended near the highs of the day…

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Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin dipped back below $19,000 today…

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Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices saw two big moves intraday but ended lower with WTI back below $46…

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Gold and Silver outperformed today…

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Bouncing off their 200DMA and 50DMA respectively…

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Source: Bloomberg

Finally, this is probably nothing…

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Source: Bloomberg

As Bloomberg’s Jan-Patrick Barnert writes, with an eye-watering 43% rally this year, the Nasdaq 100 Index is among the world’s best-performing gauges amid the pandemic. During the period, investors have poured more money into the largest exchange-traded fund tracking the index than in any year since the height of the dotcom era. The Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 ETF has logged $17.2 billion of net inflows to date, not far off the $19.7 billion record set in 2000.

Still, at least they are buying some protection after those massive gains… oh wait!?

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Source: Bloomberg

What could go wrong?