From Goldman Sachs Trading Desk: “Seasonality into year end will be a tailwind and particularly for most fund managers who are underperforming the rally, there is a strong urgency to lift beta growth proxies in a hope this will close the performance gap into year end”

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JPM: Stay bullish on equities – there is further upside if PMI downtrend turns and if ytd outflows start coming back…
Bull marker hero Mislav Matejka: “We stay constructive, looking for new highs before the next US recession strikes”

GS: tariffs have peaked
Jan Hatzius:

1. We believe that tariffs on imports from China have likely peaked. Previously, we had expected that the White House would delay the planned December 15 tariff increase until early 2020, but we believed that it was slightly more likely than not that the Administration would implement some of them next…[Read more]

US Commerce Sec. Ross: Licenses for US companies to sell to Huawei coming very shortly

BAML sets S&P targets for:

* year-end: 2950
* 12-month: 3150
* 10-year: 5150

Low volume FOMC day from Morgan Stanley
1. Since 2010, an average of 2.4 million contracts of S&P 500 futures have traded on days when the Fed made changes to the target Fed Funds rate. Vs yesterday only 1.1 million contracts of S&P 500 futures had traded (50% below average) as of ~4:20pm.

2. Looking back to the inception of the contract, S&P 500…[Read more]

Q3 – smaller earnings beat than previous 4 quarters….
1. 73% are beating 3Q earnings and 58% are beating revenue estimates

2. Earnings have surprised to the upside by 2.5% (vs. 3.2% through past 4Qs)

3. For companies that have reported so far, 3Q Revenue Growth is around 3.7% (vs. expected 3.3%) and Net Income Growth is -1.8% (vs. expected…[Read more]

Barclays: equity positioning still very light
“The current cautious positioning contrasts with the complacency that prevailed a year ago. Investors’ dislike of equities lowers the odds of another episode of painful year-end derisking and suggests the bar for positive surprises is not high”