DESPERATION!

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. We've seen a lot of manipulation, we know most of the tricks, but this was just flat out DESPERATION.

And for what? So the SPX could close up a meager +0.22% to say "The S&P-500 Hit Another All-Time High Today", but if you see what they did to get those 3+ points (less than a 1/4% move) both yesterday and today, it just doesn't make sense? Was the headline that important? I realize it's the last day of the month and all, but REALLY? And they had this hard of a time doing in on this miserably low volume? REALLY?

First off, as you know the Japanese data overnight was QUESTIONABLE at best, European data was downright ugly and US data wasn't much better, sending Bloomberg's US Macro Economic Data Indicator to its worst level in SEVEN months.

Lets just jump in and look at the charts.

First currencies because here you just can't ignore how ridiculous the manipulation is and we did call it right in the pre-market update. However, I had no idea the move/manipulation would be this obvious.

First, single currency futures- The EURO

 The vertical lift-off in the Euro which is market supportive took place around 9:15 and through the late morning.

Even when distribution sunk in, the Euro was still called upon during that last hour of trade to do anything to get the SPX up less than a 1/4 of a percent! That alone looks desperate.

The $AUD made no secret of it's positive divergence pre-market and shot straight up just after the Euro finished firing around 10 a.m., almost so there was overlap to keep momentum up as a higher $AUD IS A MARKET POSITIVE.

Again, at those prices, distribution sank in, but still the AUD was called upon the last hour of trade to ramp higher and help the SPX do the same!

The $USD had a negative divergence pre-market and fell almost straight down on the US open which is about as supportive of the market as you get, it saw accumulation at the lows, but that  didn't stop them from pushing the $USD down the last hour of trade, that fishy hour I showed you twice.

 Rarely do you see pairs signals past 1 min, here's a EUR/USD negative divergence on the 5 min, but note the ramp at the US market open, of course a market positive.

The Carry Pair of EUR/JPY had a positive pre-market divergence, it shot up just around 9 a.m. and through noon, again market positive, it saw distribution and then a move to lift it the last hour of trade.

 The other carry pair, the AUD/JPY also saw a 10:30-early afternoon lift, again, market positive on the 1 min and...

We even have a negative divergence on the 5 min chart, in essence these were ramped to areas that they were just being sold.

What else....

Well the SPY...

 This was the odd trade the last hour of the day and heavy volume, it seems someone took to selling on the buying of the SPY itself, but if that volume looks heavy, let me roll the chart forward 1 minute to the close.

And the SPX just makes it to the New Nominal high, which is just the kind of action we expected from a move like this, remember they have to make you believe and this one still hasn't done that.

Other ramping devices were obviously used, I've never seen the SPY Arb this high.

 Here's the SPY Arbitrage which is telling us 3 assets or any one or combination of 3 assets is creating an expectation based on the asset's performance that the SPY should be almost a full point higher, $0.80.

The SPY only closed $.40 higher, so this asset which we know is 1 or more of 3: HYG, TLT os VXX was telling the model that based on its performance intraday, the SPY should have been up approximately .75% rather than 0.25% today, that's how hard the lever was being pulled to try to tickle this market higher, I've never seen anything like this; typically on a low volume day like this an algo alone could lift the market 0.25%, why so much lever pulling? The only reason I can think of is the selling was just as or more intense.

CONTEXT for ES (SPX futures) has many more risk assets, but it was headed the other direction with the majority of those saying the market is at least 8 points too high according to the way other risk assets were trading, so what was the lever?

EASY, HY CREDIT/ HYG

 As I mentioned late afternoon, even HYG has its limits and it was seeing distribution that sent price from up to lateral and started to move down until even HYG was blasted higher for the last few minutes to support the market's close!

Take a look at volume, there seems to have been a big seller and then a moderate buyer for the ramp.

This is a 1 min late afternoon chart of HYG after the negative divergence as volume picked up, then volume picked up once more to ramp HYG in to the close.

HYG had already worked hard enough today...

HYG vs the SPX (green) and I thought yesterday's lever pulling of HYG was impressive, darn it, look at today's, nearly diagonal.

What about the other two, VXX and TLT?

 The VXX (Short Term VIX futures) actually was showing more fear than it was being used as a lever, once again this week, last week and the 2 days before the market fell -2.3+% in a day, VXX held up better than expected, at a new SPX high VXX should be at a new low. That's demand for protection, bidding the VIX, someone is worried.

TLT was used as yesterday's lever (see price action), early today it was used again, but then someone liked it there and started buying the "Flight to Safety" asset.

As for Commodities, they could have been used to support the market...

 Not only did commodities under-perform , they looked pretty stinky and even worse when you consider the following...

The $USD you may recall was pushed down hard on the US open, this is very supportive-the most supportive move in currencies you can ask for to help risk assets like commodities and the SPX. Yet commodities couldn't even make a new high with that nasty fall in the $USD!

 HY Credit started with a higher low, but then refused to make a higher high all day, this is not as liquid as HYG so it often sees divergences first.

Finally the NYSE TICK was apathetic all day, but look at that tight run the last hour, I swear I think they gave in and just started buying the SPY straight out, the question is why was it so important, it didn't seem to create any interest?