Q1 2023 - and even more specifically the month of March - can be summarized with one simple image...
Bank crisis in US and EU, global war rhetoric rising, de-dollarization actions escalating, US layoffs exploding? Makes you wonder about the state of the dollar eh?
BUT Everything must be ok right - the S&P 500 is above pre-SVB levels (just ignore the bank stocks collapse)...
However, a bigger picture look paints a different picture as the dollar suffered its second straight quarterly decline) as Bitcoin soared over 70% and Gold jumped almost 9% (bonds and stocks were also higher in Q1)...
In equity-land, the divergence across the majors in Q1 is quite shocking as long-duration mega-cap tech (and trash) soared while Big-Caps (Dow) and Small-Caps (Russell 2000 - heavy with small financials) ended around unchanged.T
That was the Nasdaq's best quarterly performance since Q2 2020 (and before that to Q1 2012)...
For the month, the Nasdaq is up over 8%, its biggest March advance since 2010. The Russell 2000 and Trannies were the ugliest horse in March's glue factory..
The last 3 Friday have seen fear over SVB, CS, & DB respectively, so 4th time was the charm this week with a major melt-up as early 0DTE negative delta flows (as the S&P broke above 2065 JPM Collar Call Strike) were rapidly unwound as stocks continued to squeeze higher and that accelerated the gains...
The S&P rallied all the way back up to the key 4100 level today...
