Stock Market Survives Nibiru, Gets Jittery on “Declaration of War”

Jon Banking, Economy, Market Commentary

The stock market narrowly avoided a major collapse this weekend as the mysterious Planet X (aka Nibiru) failed to collide with earth and blast us all to smithereens.
However, things didn’t start off so well on Monday with North Korea claiming that President Trump’s tweet amounted to “a declaration of war“.
Looking at broader economic and financial trends, RenMac’s Neil Dutta gave a mostly favorable review on the strength of the US economy on FS Insider citing synchronized global growth and other factors still supportive of the stock market.
For example, financial conditions, he pointed out, are extremely loose and not yet showing any signs of deterioration consistent with a market top or oncoming recession. The chart below calculates “financial stress” by measuring interest rate spreads and short-term financing conditions.

This post was published at FinancialSense on 09/25/2017.