Eye of the Tiger… Stocks have refused to give up today. Despite two selloffs –the first after 22m Americans reportedly filed for unemployment (erasing all jobs created since The Great Recession), and the second after Gov Cuomo announced an extended lockdown until at least May 15th  , the S&P continues its desperate fight for green. Retailers and Healthcare are providing some of the muscle, but lest we forget Netflix (+3.5%) and Amazon (AMZN +4%), who continue to take over the world with new highs again today. Another stock of note — Morgan Stanley (-0.4%) bucking the bank trend (JPM -4%, GS -2.2%). The company saw good underlying performance and has limited its ongoing exposure to credit risk, allowing it to outperform its counterparts. It will be interesting to watch the rest of today play out – Energy  and Banks dragging the clawing S&P.

No More Sunday Scaries? – That nervous dread excitement we all get as the weekend is coming to a close took was heightened even further of late due to how Mondays were playing out. But today makes 2 in a row that equities got off to a strong start to the week. It was a case of less bad news than overt good news – Spain reported less infections/deaths and NY state, serving as the US hotspot proxy, saw similar. Hopefully we are ebbing from the peak but warnings from top officials that the coming week was to be the hardest and saddest have many from getting too ebullient.

It started off well, and…  Things started off nicely today with markets bouncing after yesterday’s big drop.  Most sectors were trading higher (except Homebuilders, which has underperformed all session), but an announcement that Trump was going to hold a 3pm news conference to declare a National Emergency took some of the bid out.  As the US waits, equities are rallying once again, with the S&P +3% from the European close. Leading that rally, Banks (+3.3% from EU cls), Transports (+3.3%) and Biotech (IBB +3.7%).