Listen, everybody is waiting around on Jerome Powell to tell us whether it’s safe to buy some stocks (as a reminder, he’s on Capitol Hill tomorrow and Thursday).
So in the meantime, why not buy some stocks?!
The benchmarks were of course sharply higher on the day. This is what “V-shaped” looks like:
Take a minute (again) to appreciate the regime change here:
The text of Powell’s testimony will hit at 8:30am ET tomorrow, ahead of his 10:00 appearance. Over the weekend, BofAML suggested there’s virtually no chance he’ll signal four hikes this year and Deutsche Bank is out echoing those sentiments.
The dollar is waiting for cues from the testimony. It fell and then recovered on the day:
Treasurys gave up early gains; yields were modestly lower on the day. 10Y just kinda hangin’ out, waiting on Powell (and waitin’ to screw you at the first opportunity):
For reference, here are cross-asset returns YTD:
Three-week high for crude, which continues to benefit from risk-on sentiment, fading worries about U.S. inventories and, over the weekend, comments from Al-Falih which although bearish long-term, were bullish near-term.
European shares were up smartly on the session as well. For whatever it’s worth, here’s Europe on the year:
Note that this is a big week across the pond, both on the data front and on the political front (more on that here). With the Italian elections looming, it’s interesting that the MIB has outperformed this year. Here’s Goldman with some further color:
Oh, speaking of Europe, Draghi was on the tape today. “There isn’t any currency war I would talk about,” he told lawmakers at the European Parliament in Brussels, in a wide ranging testimony. “Volatility in exchange rates deserves close monitoring as it could impact price stability,” he added. Here are some other highlights via Bloomberg with the monetary policy implications in parentheses:
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