From NAB's Rob Henderson this morning:
"The meltdown in global stocks continued overnight. European markets tried to rally at the open but soon a wall of selling took over. US stocks crashed at the open, tried to rally on and off during the day but petered out about 5.00am AEST to fall heavily into the close. A measure of investor risk appetite the VIX volatility on the S&P 500 rose to a fresh high of 46.4 (worse risk appetite, gapping on the open). This is the worst reading since 20 March, though still way below the extreme highs of late 2009. Spain’s 10 year bond auction went off pretty well, selling €3.52bn at 4.054%, up 19bps on the last auction in March, with bids for the bonds 2.9 times the offering – good. But the yield on French 10-yr bonds fell to 2.94%, the lowest since at least 1990 as even within Europe, safe havens were in demand. Comments from Germany’s Merkel that she will push her Group of 20 counterparts to accelerate steps to tighten political control over financial markets and add new taxes on banks didn’t help. And, the weak US economic data, although one week does not make a trend, came just at the wrong time."
