This just seemed appropriate... China saw another epic night of buying with tech-heavy indices now up 5% this week... European markets extended on from China's gains until US cash markets opened and then they faded... The overnight gains in US equity futures were sold at the open, erasing the day's gains and yesterday's gains before a Kudlow-fueled bounce... 1245ET TRUMP SAYS HE IS THE ONE HOLDING UP CHINA TRADE DEAL 1330ET "Release The Kudlow" 1410ET Which was quickly countered by Chinese Media, stalling the Kudlow bounce:https://twitter.com/HuXijin_GT/status/1138508724211863552!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); "From information I have access to, there is no sign that China is relaxing its countermeasures against US trade war. Chinese basically have no trust in the mild signals the US side sent occasionally. Will there be a breakthrough at G20? I dare not be optimistic at this moment." Every effort was then made to get The Dow green for the 7th day in a row (longest win streak since May 2018) BUT THAT FAILED at the last second... Nasdaq was unable to hold above the 50DMA again and The Dow found support at that level Another big short-squeeze at the open and another big fade after Europe closed... It would appear the tech bulls have completely forgotten about the anti-trust issues hanging over the tech giants' heads... As Bloomberg's Luke Kawa noted today, tech bulls might want to pay attention to remarks out today from Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the antitrust division of the DOJ. Because that regulatory risk isn't going away. Delrahim name-dropped Google a few times, and not in a particularly favorable light. BYND blew up - plunging 25% after JPM's downgrade slapped reality into the market VIX continues to decouple from the underlying index... Bonds and Stocks remain decoupled also... Treasury yields were notably quieter today with a mixed picture (curve steeper with short-end notably underperforming the long)... 30Y Yields shifted back into their recent range... The curve steepened but remains inverted for the 14th day in a row... The Dollar dumped to its lowest since 6/17 - erasing gains since the April Fed Minutes - after Trump slammed the world's currency manipulators for devaluing against the dollar... Another threat from the PBOC to Yuan shorts overnight prompted a spike in the Chinese currency... to 2-day highs... Cryptos broadly drifted lower but Litecoin spiked once again... Copper extended its recent gains on China "growth" measures, but WTI dipped intraday (ahead of tonight's inventory data). PMs were very modestly higher... Gold remains above $1330... Finally, as Bloomberg's David Wilson reports, anticipation that U.S. stocks will rise once the Federal Reserve begins reducing interest rates is at odds with recent history. Data compiled by CFRA Inc. show the S&P 500 Index fell 12.4% in the first six months after cuts started in 2007. The drop broke a post-World War II record of 9.5% set in 2001, when the central bank’s previous series of reductions got under way. Declines in the S&P 500 also followed moves toward lower rates that began in 1960, 1968 and 1981. Another setback may happen this time “if the Fed decides to cut rates prematurely,” Sam Stovall, CFRA’s chief investment strategist, wrote Monday in a report.