On Final Day Of Extremely Volatile Quarter, Futures Trade Modestly Lower
By Tyler Durden
On the last day of an extremely volatile first quarter, following the latest torrid push higher in risk assets over the past two days following Yellen’s dovish Tuesday comments, today has seen a modest pull back in risk, whether because the market is massively overbought, because someone finally looked at what record multiple expansion that has taken place in Q1 as earnings are set to collapse by nearly 10%, or simply due to fears that tomorrow’s payrolls number will show an abnormal amount of minimum wage waiters and bartenders added.
Whatever the reason, stocks slipped and have unwound some of the March rebound that had the MSCI All-Country World Index on the brink of erasing its losses for 2016. Crude oil retreated with base metals. As
As a reminder, this is where we stood as of last night: by the close of play yesterday the S&P 500 (+0.44%) had extended its winning streak to three consecutive sessions and in the process reached the highest level since December 29th. In fact yesterday’s move means the index has rallied over 14% off the intraday low midway through last month and is just 3% off the 2015 high set back in May.
S&P 500 futures fell 0.1 percent, suggesting US stocks could snap a three-day winning streak that pushed the measure to its highest level this year. Among the key events today, investors will look to today’s initial jobless claims report for indications of the health of the labor market before Friday’s key non-farm payroll data.
After beating U.S. equities last year by the most in a decade, European stocks are now trailing them by the most since 2003. This quarter, analysts have slashed profit estimates, now forecasting declines for the year. Fund managers have withdrawn money for seven straight weeks, the longest streak since 2014, according to a Bank of America Corp. note last week.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index pared gains to 0.1 percent, and is poised for an 8.2 percent jump in March. The Topix index fell 0.7 percent in Tokyo.
As reported before, we close off the quarter with the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index headed for its worst month since 2010 and Treasury yields were on course for their largest quarterly drop since 2012 after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen reiterated that weaker global growth called for a gradual approach to raising rates. Copper and zinc pared their first quarterly increases since 2014, while gold headed for its biggest three-month gain since 1986.
European stocks are heading for their first monthly gain since November, although progress hasn’t been sufficient to avoid a third quarterly drop in four. Global equities are up more than 7 percent in March, their first increase since October, but are still down 0.3 percent for the first three months of 2016.
“A lot of the recent rebound has been down to the Fed back-tracking on rate hikes,” Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners in Wellington, which …read more
Source: On Final Day Of Extremely Volatile Quarter, Futures Trade Modestly Lower
