Chart of the Day
After breaking out of its prior trading range earlier this week, oil prices continued to rise yesterday and WTI was up another 1.6%. It is up by 6.7% in the past month, and gasoline prices are up by 4.4%, both to their highest levels since 2018. That will add further fuel to consumer price inflation if maintained.
Macro
In the US, mortgage applications for house purchase fell by 3.1% last week, to the lowest since the initial Covid disruption.
In the UK, the flow of mortgage credit dropped sharply in April – it was very high in March due to the scheduled expiry of a tax exemption on house purchases (which is now ended in June instead).
In Brazil, inflation rose to 6.8% in April, which compares to the central bank’s target of 3.5% for 2022. Core inflation is now just above the target too, at 3.3%. Most analysts expect the central bank to hike rates further.
Markets
Lumber appears to have found support around $1260, having bounced off that level twice.
We all know the meme stocks like AMC were up very strongly yesterday, and there were some large moves in the EV market as well, at least for some of them.
Nvidia has been pulling away from other semiconductor stocks.
But at a higher level, equity indices are not doing so well – the transportation index is struggling to gain ground, not normally a good sign for the outlook.
The SKEW has fallen lately, suggesting less demand for insurance against a large drop in equity prices.
The recent rise in the VVIX could signal that VIX will soon rebound as well.
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