The dip-buyers who stepped in during the last hour of Wall Street trading yesterday are back again today, pushing stocks higher around the world.
S&P futures(SPX), Nasdaq 100 futures(NDX:IND)and Dow Jones futures(INDU)are all up about 1%.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei(NKY:IND)is lower, catching up with trading after a holiday on Monday, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng(HSI)is up more than half a percent.
In Europe, the benchmark indexes in Frankfurt, London and Paris are more than 1% higher, with the broader Stoxx 600(STOXX)up 1%.
Rates are paring losses, with the 10-year Treasury yield(NYSEARCA:TBT)(NASDAQ:TLT)up 3 basis points to 1.34%.
And volatility is ebbing. The S&P Vix Index(VIX), also referred to as the fear gauge, is down 12% after a surge yesterday.
The VIX "traded north of 25 for the first time since May, a rise which is likely to have exacerbated some of the declines, with risk models forcing positions to be trimmed as volatility climbs, thus increasing selling, fueling a further increase in volatility; and so on, and so forth," Michael Brown, senior market analyst at Caxton writes.
No Lehman moment.Jitters about the impact of China's Evergrande defaulting on interest payments have eased overnight.
S&P Global Ratings says that a governmentbailout is unlikely unless there is systemic risk and "far-reaching" contagion from Evergrande.
But the S&P analysts also say the property company "failing alone would unlikely result in such a scenario."
"The crisis at Evergrande and in the Chinese real estate sector was the catalyst (for a selloff) most people were talking about, but truth be told, the market rout we’re seeing is reflecting a wider set of risks than just Chinese property, and comes after increasing questions have been asked about whether current valuations could still be justified, with talk of a potential correction picking up," Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid writes today.
"Remember that 68% of respondents to my survey last week thought they’d be at least a 5% correction in equity markets before year end. So this has been front and center of people’s mind even if the catalyst hasn’t been clear," he adds.
Time to buy?Monday's tumble brought some bullish calls from Wall Street banks, where several strategists still see the path of the broader market moving up and to the right.
"The market sell-off that escalated overnight we believe is primarily driven by technical selling flows (CTAs and option hedgers) in an environment of poor liquidity, and overreaction of discretionary traders to perceived risks,” Marko Kolanovic, chief global market strategist at JPMorgan, wrote in a note yesterday. “Our fundamental thesis remains unchanged, and we see the sell-off as an opportunity to buy the dip.”
From a technical perspective, Piper Sandler strategist Craig W. Johnson called this week a "key test for the buy the dip crowd" and that a failure to defend the S&P's 50-day moving average around 4,436 "would suggest the broader market is at risk for a deeper pullback."
But Thomas Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, agreed with Kolanovic, saying on CNBC the time was right to look at adding to positions.
"I would look at selloffs like this, which is sort of broad-based selling, as a time to add incrementally,"Lee said.
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