Media & Momo Meltdown, Small Caps & SPACs Slammed As Bonds & The Buck Bounce

Just as we warned earlier in the week, today highlighted the epic clash between forced pension selling and quant-buying into month-/quarter-end.

Today saw bonds bid shortly after the US cash open and stocks dumped (rebalancing?), but once Europe closed, the standard trend reversal struck and things changed and then with an hour to go quant-buying went into overdrive

Source: Bloomberg

And VIX was smashed lower…

Source: Bloomberg

And that massive reversal in VIX sparked a last hour total meltup in stocks…

Small Caps were clubbed like a baby seal this week, but that quant-buying panic sent the rest of the US majors into the green for the week…

But under the surface, something violent is happening…

“Most Shorted” stocks suffered their worst week since October, despite Thursday’s big squeeze effort…

Source: Bloomberg

Cathie Wood had another bad week with ARKK down almost 10% to its lowest weekly close since early November…

It wasn’t just US tech, there was a major liquidation in a number of China tech stocks this week…

And media stocks were monkeyhammered (this was the biggest weekly drop in media stocks since March 2020)…

This all had the smell of a major media/tech fund liquidation. ViacomCBS was a total shitshow…

Momentum stocks melted down…

Source: Bloomberg

SPACs dumped…

Source: Bloomberg

On the week, Staples outperformed as Discretionary dumped and Energy stocks changed their mind faster than Fauci…

Source: Bloomberg

The put-call ration rose significantly this week as the gamma-squeezers have apparently left the building for now…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were lower across the curve this week led by the long-end…

Source: Bloomberg

Is the pullback in Small Caps relative to Big-Tech implying that rates have peaked for now?

Source: Bloomberg

1.60% remains a key level for 10Y yields…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar ramped back up to early March highs, screaming higher after the Powell puke last week…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were down for the second week in a row, mainly due to the big puke on Weds…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin puked back near $50k this week before finding a bid…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were very mixed on the week, but all ended lower against the stronger dollar, with silver suffering the most…

Source: Bloomberg

And just look at the chaos in crude this week as the Suez blockage interacted with European demand fears…

Silver slumped back below $25 during the week, below the Reddit Raiders lows…

Finally, COVID vaccinations are re-accelerating in US and EU…

Source: Bloomberg

And while cases are up modestly (are PCR tests picking up spike proteins from the mRNA vaccines?), death rates continue to tumble…

Source: Bloomberg

And, it would appear that stuff is getting serious and Powell and his pals are gonna have to accelerate the pumping once again as sideways is not up… and that just will not do for today’s ‘guru’ stock traders…

Source: Bloomberg