In yesterday’s cash session stocks surrendered a 2% rally on news that Gilead’s drug disappointed in human trials.
US equity futures are rallying in the pre-market this morning against a sea of red across Asia and Europe, against yesterday’s PMI releases showing some of the worst prints on record, and against news this morning that US durable goods orders plunged 14% in March, vs -11% expected. Not to mention against abysmal outlooks emerging from Q1 earnings reports.
Clearly, the market continues to trade on headline news related to COVID (yesterday’s selloff) and to stimulus (another $484 billion, President to sign the bill today); as opposed to the underlying fundamentals. Which is consistent with my view that we’re still in the denial/hope phase of the bear market; a phase that lasted 8 weeks during both previous bear markets, we’re 4 weeks into this one. I will add that the character of the present rally, via the daily internals, is very suspect. Not remotely the look, at this point, of anything sustainable. I.e., I wouldn’t be surprised if this “retracement rally” doesn’t make it 8 weeks.
That last sentence said, if I had a nickel for every time over the past 35 years the market surprised me….