Massive Short-Squeeze Sends Small Caps Soaring; Big-Tech Skids, Bitcoin & Black Gold Bid

Jobless claims just won’t quit and were enough to send Treasury yields higher today after ARM and DIS earnings’ blast-offs last night.

Rate-cut expectations drifted lower still (hawkish)…

Source: Bloomberg

But stocks hit a new record high…

Source: Bloomberg

The S&P 500 hit 5000.4 intraday…

Source: Bloomberg

…thanks to a miraculous sudden huge buy program in the last few seconds…

Source: Bloomberg

One thing of note, the S&P 500 is an new all-time high, while the Russell 2000 is still in a bear market…

Source: Bloomberg

No, ‘banking crisis 2.0’ is not over. NYCB dumped today…

…and the overall Regional Bank index went sideways…

Source: Bloomberg

Today saw small caps rip higher while the rest of the majors trod water (at a very marginal new high for S&P)…

This was the second-best daily RTY-NDX outperformance in two months, which happened to occur at a critical resistance level…

Source: Bloomberg

It’s been quite a wild ride this week for the RTY-NDX pair – whipsawing from one side to the other… PRESUMABLY tomorrow brings a big Nasdaq outperformance day…

Source: Bloomberg

ARM was up 50% (yes 5…0)… lol

Source: Bloomberg

DIS rallied over 11% on the day, to one-year highs…

Source: Bloomberg

MAG7 stocks drifted very modestly lower on the day…

Source: Bloomberg

Amid a massive short-squeeze…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were higher on the day (despite a strong 30Y auction), with the belly (5-10Y) underperforming (2Y +2.5bps, 10Y +6bps, 30Y +4bps).

Source: Bloomberg

Even though the 30Y auction was solid, yields pushed up to two week highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin surged back above $45,000 today…

Source: Bloomberg

…after yet another strong day of net inflows to spot bitcoin ETFs…

Source: Bloomberg

…and bitcoin notably outperformed ethereum today…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar jumped higher on the strong claims data…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold ended the day practically unchanged (despite the dollar strength), after diving to $2020 and finding support…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices surged today with WTI back above $76, erasing the drop at the end of last week…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, all eyes remain on tomorrow’s CPI revisions and next Tuesday’s January CPI print. With S&P vol skews at near-record lows…

Source: Bloomberg

…what could go wrong?