US stock markets rolling over late in the week would be a vicious blow

The price action in risk assets in the last hour is sobering. The S&P 500 has turned a 110-point gain into a 60-point gain. That’s still up 1.5% but there’s still 90 minutes of trading left to go.

If the index is already down for six straight weeks and it can’t muster a decent relief rally then it’s curtains. We’ve seen this once before on Powell ruling out 75 bps followed by a strong bounce and then a rout. We’re at lower levels now so you’d expect some kind of a bounce to stick for more than a few hours.

If it can’t then god help the stock market bulls.

The cross asset look illustrates part of the problem. US 10-year yields are back up by 11 bps today. That creates a negative feedback loop for stocks.

Over in crypto, bitcoin has been a good leading indicator for risk sentiment as well and it’s back down through $30,000 and at the lows of US trading at $29,480.