A day like almost any other – S&P 500 about to take again on the ATHs until the capital gains tax hike proposal came, shaving off 50 points in stocks within an hour. The 4,415 support held though, both before and after the closing bell. Are we ready to shake off the cold water and resume running higher again? Depends on where you look – stocks have quite some recovering still to do, and it‘s the precious metals and commodities that are performing best today. Both as an index and sectoral collection, the S&P 500 sustained broad damage, concentrated in the tech heavyweights. The volatility spike has been partially repelled but option traders seem expecting another shoe to drop, which attests to us better dampening expectations of a fast return above 4,170.
US Treasuries are as much sought-out by investors in a crisis or pending crisis, but lately, Treasuries have become much less popular as a means of storing wealth.
The reason is simple: T-bills don’t offer a good return, and neither do other sovereign debt instruments. Although US Treasury yields have been climbing, owing partly to expectations of inflation, in recent weeks this trend has reversed, amid renewed concerns about the pandemic.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization warned that global infections were reaching their highest levels, prompting many fund managers to rotate money into safe-haven bonds. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slid to 1.5% while the 30-year yield was reduced to 2.26%.
Doubles down on emissions
This week Biden fulfilled a campaign promise in convening a “global climate summit” within his first 100 days in office. The two-day virtual meeting, attended by the leaders of a number of US allies and two of its adversaries China and Russia appears like many of these gatherings to be mostly a talking shop.
But a decision on Thursday is substantive, and therefore bears examination. The president committed the US to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52% below its 2005 emissions levels by 2030, without revealing any details as to how this would be achieved.
The announcement also brings GHG reduction targets 20 years forward from what is set out in Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure/ clean energy proposal unveiled in March. That plan commits to net-zero emissions by 2050 (net-zero refers to balancing the amount of emitted greenhouse gases with the equivalent emissions that are either offset or sequestered).