Historic day for markets as equity pullback...>

FOREX: Historic day for markets as equity pullback accelerates

- A late move from the New York Fed failed to convince markets ahead of the

close as they announced a new wave of wider Treasury purchases and an expanded

repo operations program to help quell market tensions and "temporary

disruptions" within funding markets. The announcement helped equity futures trim

some of the considerable losses, but this were rapidly sold into the close.

- European indices fell at a historic rate, with broad-based losses of over 10%

for continental markets. Losses were sharp, with markets aggressively selling

off in response to the ECB press conference at which the President Lagarde

stated that the ECB is "not here to close bond spreads". Markets were broadly

underwhelmed by the lack of a rate cut and stopped short of broad-based

sovereign bond purchases and instead, favoured the private sector.

- As such, the greenback rallied sharply at the expense of, again, growth-proxy

currencies and EMFX. GBP also traded particularly poorly as the UK shifted their

virus strategy to 'delay' from 'contain', raising the likelihood of a slowdown

in economic activity.