Europe open

Equities in Europe and the Far East seem generally up. Indonesia jumped a lot. Spain slumped. This quarter has been positive for nearly all equity markets, with the exception of Mexico, FTSE, AEX, STI and N225.

So far this quarter has had no clear direction. CB support has held back the armies of bearish factors single handed. It’s not buying “high yield” bonds any more though, which should please the critics who said that this was crossing the Rubicon into doing fiscal policy.

(About) US Close

Strong risk-on day today. Bitcoin up 3.6%. Every equity market on the planet green. Commodities up (apart from crude, which was flat). Govt. credit was flat, corp credit up (high yield down slightly, which is interesting: presumably someone noticed that the Fed has stopped buying). DX down.

Most commodities, apart from precious metals, are down YTD. Heating oil is down 46%, although Nat. Gas is up 7.4%.