Good is bad, up is down, stocks are safe, war is peace...

The Dow underperformed notably, driven mostly by IBM weakness (swiping 84 points off The Dow), but Trannies surged once again...

Futures show overnight gains, a dump at the open followed by panic-buying... and then a weak close...

Big bank stocks are not loving blockbuster earnings...

Tech is now at its highest relative to financials since 2000...

Stocks and bonds remain decoupled this week...

The Treasury yield curve was in freefall...

Before suddenly bouncing steeper after Europe closed today...

With 2s30s...(down to 58bps today)

And 2s10s... (down to 41bps today)

5s30s is approaching unprecedented territory: it flattened again today for the 9th straight session, to about 29 basis points, before bouncing back

The spread has narrowed 10 consecutive times on only a few occasions..,And has never compressed 11 trading days in a row, according to Bloomberg data going back to 1992.

“The yield curve can’t flatten every day,” said Jim Vogel, a strategist at FTN Financial Capital Markets. “But it certainly seems willing to try.”

2Y Treasury-to-3m LIBOR has inverted...

All of which has crushed small banking stocks relative to the market...

Breakevens and Real Yields spiked this afternoon...

The Dollar Index held on to gains for a second day in a row - despite some notable swings...

The Turkish Lira surged after Erdogan called early elections...

The Ruble ticked higher on 'old news' headlines that Washington was unlikely to hit Russia with more sanctions...

Cryptocurrencies were all higher today but note the extremely disjointed price action of the last few days as huge volume buys and sells hit the markets simultaneously...

Bitcoin seems to have found support at $8,000...

Despite dollar gains, commodities all surged today...led by PMs

Meanwhile in industrial commodities, Nickel exploded higher and aluminum kept surging...

• *LME 3-MONTH NICKEL SETTLES $1,060 HIGHER AT $15,275 A TON

• *LME 3-MONTH ALUMINUM SETTLES $132 HIGHER AT $2,537 A TON

• *LME 3-MONTH ZINC SETTLES $111 HIGHER AT $3,265 A TON

• *LME 3-MONTH COPPER SETTLES $145 HIGHER AT $7,022 A TON

WTI/RBOB surged after API overnight, spiked on DOE confirmation, then dipped... then ripped to new multi-year highs...

And Gold and Silver jumped today... with Silver breaking out to near 3-month highs...