After yesterday’s last hour selloff sent the S&P to the very edge of the critical support trendline which, as shown yesterday, meant 1980 had to be defended at all costs…
… so far the support has held, and in overnight trading European stocks have managed to rebound on the back of more levitation in oil, while US equity futures have ignored a drop in the USDJPY which touched 112.20 in morning trading, and have jumped by 0.5% as of this moment, up 10 points to 1,990.
It is worth noting that China opened on the wrong foot, with the Yuan feeling the pain of the recent abysmal trade data, however, after dropping as much as 3%, Chinese stocks managed to crawl back to the highs of the day following another dramatic intervention by the Chinese government’s “National Team”:
#China | “ICBC rallies in late trade on suspected buying by State Funds” Ya think?! Got to keep mkt up during NPC pic.twitter.com/CLukVq0QDK
— Ioan Smith (@moved_average) March 9, 2016
With China’s Plunge Protection Team having intervened and set a positive spin on another poor session, traders put declines in Asia behind them as European markets rose along with U.S. index futures and commodities. European shares advanced for the first time in three days on speculation the region’s central bank will ramp up monetary stimulus on Thursday. A gauge of raw materials rebounded from its biggest selloff in a month, buoyed by gains in oil and copper. Furthermore, the previously noted selloff in Japanese government bonds – one which triggered circuit breakers and which some speculated may have been precipitated by the BOJ itself – dragged Treasuries and German bunds lower, gold fell a second day and the euro dropped versus most of its major peers.
Because the last thing the market needs is negative follow through the day after Jeff Gundlach says that the rally is ending and the the risk/return profile of the S&P is currently 2/20.
To be sure, everyone’s attention will be focused on tomorrow’s ECB, where Draghi will either provide a major upside surprise, or will disappoint massively to the downside: just like in December, there is no middle ground. “We think a 10bp cut and a EU10b top-up in QE purchases won’t do much to extend the equity rally, namely because it’s already priced in. A very generous macro add-on to the two-tiered system would possibly help lenders in the very short term, but realistically, it’s only the threat of credit purchases, corporate and/or financial, that can get the market excited at this point. Even if Draghi pulls another rabbit, the fundamental picture for European banks will remain extremely challenging given the grim outlook for back-end yields,” Ben Camara, head of European strategy at Vanda Securities, writes in note.
Others are just as skeptical: “There’s talk of rates cuts, increasing the size of the asset-purchase program, and expanding the range of products that the ECB will buy,” said Daniel Murray, the London-based head of research at EFG Asset Management. “Let’s see tomorrow how good Draghi is at playing the market: he has built up expectations before and found them hard to meet.”
So while we await the week’s key event, here is where we stand currently.
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