Stocks, Bonds, Crypto, & Copper Soar As Confidence Crashes Near Decade-Lows This week was a tale of two halves. Stonks chopped lower into Wednesday morning, bounced off an opening dump then accelerated (despite The Fed Minutes signaled considerably more hawkish taper and rate-trajectory expectations). Nasdaq was the week's biggest gainer (thanks to Small Caps puke today) and The Dow underperformed but only modestly... That was the S&P's best week since July. Major reversal in Small Caps today however from the cash open, as the rest of the majors rallied divergently... This week's panic-buying has reduced the drawdown from record highs (for the S&P) to just 1.5%... Source: Bloomberg After Monday's dump, every day this week has opened with a panicky short-squeeze to ignite momentum... Source: Bloomberg But as today's OpEx struck early, the short-squeezers ran out of ammo... Source: Bloomberg Both Defensives and Cyclicals were bid this week but the latter outperformed today to win the week... Source: Bloomberg Sectors were all higher on the week but Utes lagged and Materials led the gains. Financials were towards the lower end of the overall performance... Source: Bloomberg In bank-land, earnings have sparked a notable divergence with MS leading and JPM lagging (after a buying panic renewed in WFC today)... Source: Bloomberg VIX was clubbed like a baby seal this week, hitting a 15 handle briefly today...Tough to see much downside for vol from here (especially given the typical post-opex bounce) Bonds were very mixed this week with the short-end dumped and long-end well bid (2Y +8bps, 30Y -12bps)... Source: Bloomberg 2Y yields pushed up to their highest since March 2020 and 5Y at its highest since Feb 2020... Source: Bloomberg The yield curve flattened dramatically this week (the biggest curve flattening week since June) with the 5s30s spread at its lowest since May 2020 as traders signaled expectations for a Fed policy error... Source: Bloomberg The very-short-end of the curve repriced dramatically this week - in a hawkish manner - with a full rate-hike now priced in for September 2022 (with expectations that The Fed's taper will start in Dec and end in July 2022)... Source: Bloomberg And on a side note, the 'kink' is back and building in the T-Bill curve as the odds of a clean debt-ceiling extension in December slide... The dollar fell for the 3rd straight day today and suffered the broke a 5-week winning streak. The dollar has traded in a tight range for the last 3 weeks though... Source: Bloomberg Crypto soared higher, rising for 3rd straight week, led by Bitcoin... Source: Bloomberg With Bitcoin back above $60K for the first time since April (and in fact reached almost $62K today)... Source: Bloomberg Commodities all made gains this week (CRB all comms hit an all-time record high) but copper was the dramatic outperformed while gold lagged... Source: Bloomberg WTI rallied for an 8th straight week, its longest winning streak since May 2015, topping $82 for the first time since Oct 2014... Source: Bloomberg Copper soared this week (its best week since Nov 2016 and 2nd best week since Oct 2011), back near the May highs, as global inventories plunge... Source: Bloomberg Gold tagged $1800 but was unable to hold it... Finally, you have to laugh really that stocks are surging back towards record highs on a day when consumer sentiment printed at its 2nd lowest level in a decade... Source: Bloomberg "Probably nothing..." Still this chart makes us wonder if a redux is in the cards? Source: Bloomberg Tyler Durden Fri, 10/15/2021 - 16:00