* Quad witching did not bring as much volatility after all; in...

* Quad witching did not bring as much volatility after all; in fact the US market was pretty much 'dead' - scant attention paid to the better PMI figures other than it did drive commodities lower as it gave reason for the Fed to stay put.
* NVIDIA and AAPL both took a breather, down by -3.22% and -1.04% respectively; nonetheless it was a mixed market from the heatmap below
https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1804243010118652019
* Silver retraced back below $30 declining -3.86%, closing the week flat +0.05%, Gold too had a bad night -1.64%, closed the week -0.42%, Copper -2.89% and down -1.35% on the week, WTI Crude at $80.92 down -0.83%

* Well, you should know that:
The S&P 500 has gone 377 days without a 2.05% sell-off. That’s the longest stretch for the benchmark since the great financial crisis. The index hasn’t experienced a gain of at least 2.15% in that time either.

..and this is an interesting take from Peter Berezin
"I expect the S&P 500 to fall to 3750 during the next recession. This target assumes two things: The forward PE ratio drops to 16, which would still leave it above the 2012-19 average; and that EPS estimates decline by 10%, which is also quite conservative. That’s it."
https://x.com/PeterBerezinBCA/status/1804151593517867493

now if you look at Peter's post above, it has a table of simulated range of S&P500 levels based on various combinations of PEx & Earnings growth outcomes. So, even if S&P500 can generate a +10% growth which is plausible (unlikely to be higher) and at PE of 20x, the S&P500 would be at 5694, that is just +4.19% upside from where it is now. So clearly the risk:reward is to the downside.

....this reminded me of Q4 2019 when the broader market in ASX was quite 'dead' with narrow concentrated focus on WAAX stocks and Wall St was rallying hard (indices wise) on the back of the 'end' of the Trump US-China trade war, (we know what happened in Q1 2020). Now the 'love' is concentrated in bank stocks primarily CBA and speculative force that is gradually becoming a more spent force (as market participants retreat after losses) in gold, lithium, uranium. Despite US market doing great, 2024 has not been an easy market for ASX market participants - if it is not easy to make money while the US market is doing gangbusters, seriously what hope is there when Wall St faces a reckoning or even an overdue correction?

this was my post on 5 Dec 2023 warning you about lithium stocks.
Its Over, 71276467, page-19557 | HotCopper Forum

and my prognostication on 2024 on 17 Dec 2023 pale in comparison to what we see now in terms of market exuberance/mania
Its Over, 71492113, page-19676 | HotCopper Forum

	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
0	STOCK INDICES [US 21 Jun 24]	Overnight %
1	DOW	0.04%	39,150
2	S&P500	-0.16%	5,465
3	NASDAQ	-0.16%	17,693
4	DXY	0.23%	105.83
5	US 2 YR	0.09%	4.734
6	US 10 YR	0.00%	4.257
7	AUD	-0.19%	0.6642
8	GOLD	-1.64%	$ 2,321
9	SILVER	-3.86%	$ 29.55
10	BTC	-1.11%	$   64,133
11
12
13	GOLD	Overnight %
14	GDX	-1.62%
15	GDXJ	-2.10%
16	NEWMONT GOLDCORP(NEM)	-1.28%
17	BARRICK GOLD (GOLD)	-2.36%
18	AGNICO EAGLE MINES (AEM)	-1.27%
19	SILVER
20	SIL	-2.21%
21	SILJ	-2.45%
22	PAN AMERICAN SILVER(PAAS)	-1.84%
23	LITHIUM
24	SPROTT LITHIUM MINERS (LITP)	-2.69%
25	GLOBAL X LITHIUM (LIT)	-1.30%
26	ALBEMARLE (ALB)	0.93%
27	SOQUIMICH (SQM)	0.94%
28	LITHIUM AMERICAS (LAC)	0.35%
29	PIEDMONT LITHIUM (PLL)	-0.78%
30	ARCADIUM LITHIUM	-1.52%
31	PATRIOT BATTERY METALS	-4.56%
32	COPPER
33	GLOBAL X COPPER MINERS(COPX)	-1.76%
34	BHP	-1.10%
35	RIO	-0.78%
36	SOUTHERN COPPER (SCCO)	-1.28%
37	FREEPORT MCMORAN (FCX)	0.41%
38	FIRST QUANTUM MINERALS (FQVLF)	-0.16%
39	TECK RESOURCES (TECK)	-1.60%
40	OIL
41	XLE	-0.58%
42	EXXON (XOM)	-0.88%
43	CHEVRON )CVX)	-0.87%
44	OCCIDENTAL (OXY)	-2.43%
45	CONOCOPHILLIPS (COP)	0.01%
46	MARATHON OIL (MRO)	-0.25%
47	HALLIBURTON (HAL)	0.93%
48	COAL
49	RANGE GLOBAL COAL (COAL)	-0.93%
50	PEABODY ENERGY (BTU)	-3.40%
51	ALPHA METALLURGICAL (AMR)	-2.27%
52	ARCH RESOURCES (ARCH)	-5.04%
53	WARRIOR MET COAL (HCC)	-7.46%
54	URANIUM
55	GLOBAL X URANIUM (URA)	-1.66%
56	NICKEL
57	SPROTT NICKEL MINERS (NIKL)	-0.08%
58	RARE EARTHS
59	OPTICA RARE EARTHS (CRIT)	-1.11%

Crude Pops, Gold Drops, Crypto Flops As NVDA Suffers Worst Week In 2 Months

BY Zero Hedge
SATURDAY, JUN 22, 2024 - 06:00 AM

The biggest 'quadwitch' ever saw a tight trading range outside of the open and the close.

A chaotic start - as $3 trillion notional options expired on the open - left stocks to tread water for much of the day (even as bond markets suddenly gave a shit about flash PMIs), until the volume exploded into the close.

It was another ugly week for US macro data overall - with the Bloomberg Economic Surprise Index tumbling to its weakest since Feb 2019...

Source: Bloomberg
But the decline was dominated by 'hard' real data (worst since Sept 2022) while soft survey data improved off nine-year lows...

Source: Bloomberg
On the week, The Dow outperformed while Nasdaq lagged as Monday's huge squeeze higher saved the entire week...

The fund and games were not over until the last second. The Nasdaq Composite cash index closed last Friday at 17688.88. Thanks to some last second shenanigans from the machines, the Nasdaq Composite cash index closed this week at 17689.36... +0.48pts or 0.002%... to ensure the 8th positive week in the last 9 weeks...

Source: Bloomberg
Utes and Real Estate were the only sectors to close down on the week as Energy outperformed...

Source: Bloomberg
NVDA suffered its first down-week in two months...

Goldman Sachs said that their floor tilted -22% better for sale, driven by supply within the LO community. But, they highlighted that as expected, some massive opening prints w/ quadwitch (and noted that the close will be 5x). We did have asset managers take advantage of these opening prints.

• LOs are currently -6% better for sale. Supply from this group is largely being driven by Info Tech, Healthcare, and Consumer names.
• HFs are slightly better to buy, led by Consumer Disc and Healthcare. HFs are modestly selling Fins, REITs, Materials, and Energy.  HF trading during first 30 mins driven by factor models. Little Mo drawdown mostly concentrated in tech w/ MU, NVD, AVGO, QCOM underperforming vs TXN, INTC, ON, MCHP outperforming.

Stifel’s Barry Bannister says the US stock benchmark has a shot at reaching the 6,000 mark before the end of 2024 as investors keep piling in, up from just below 5,500 Thursday. But by mid-2026, he expects the gauge to sink back to where it began this year — around the 4,800 level — erasing a fifth of its value.
To be clear, the forecaster says risk assets, and equity markets in particular, are due for a correction much sooner. His official year-end S&P 500 target stands at 4,750, implying a drop of some 13% from today. The index retreated after touching all-time highs Thursday as technology shares came under pressure. Still, the euphoria among investors that’s powered the market for months is set to propel shares higher before they eventually plunge, he says.
“Timing is everything,” Bannister and his team wrote Wednesday in a note to clients, “and we are aware that investors may be in full-fledged bubble/mania mode which looks past our concerns.”
Bannister is not alone as Mark Spitznagel, the founder and chief of Universa Investments, said:
"I've been saying this for a year and a half because people got 2022 so incredibly wrong (we're not in the 70s!). The Fed recklessly popped the greatest credit bubble in human history and now as people realize that the Fed needs to about-face, they're going to get increasingly juked the other way in a face-ripping rally. At the point of euphoria — which is coming — the high will be in and the market will crash worse than the global financial crisis."
"What matters more than my views on this are how Universa's clients are positioned for it — for both a face-ripping rally and for the worst crash since 1929."
Is this week's NVDA weakness a sign of things to come?

Source: Bloomberg
Or is the macro picture signaling something that stocks don't know...

Source: Bloomberg
Looking at US bond yields trade this week, it's clear we are entering the 'illiquid summer' season as yields snapped and crapped constantly to end the week marginally higher...

Source: Bloomberg
But, on the bright side, at least they're not French where the OATS spread exploded to its widest since 2012 (the EU Debt Crisis)...

Source: Bloomberg
US rate-cut expectations for 2024 and 2025 were basically unchanged on the week...

Source: Bloomberg
The dollar ended the week very marginally higher

Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin suffered this week with ETF outflows for five straight days...

Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin fell to $64,000 and found some support at six-week lows...

Source: Bloomberg
Gold was performing well all week until this morning's hot PMIs which sent the barbarous relic into the red...

Source: Bloomberg
Despite a dip today as contracts rolled, the front-month WTI futures price rallied up to its highest since April this week...

Source: Bloomberg
Finally, Messers Biden and Powell may be about to have a problem...

Source: Bloomberg
...as pump-prices are about to chase wholesale gasoline prices and crude prices higher.