Stock Market Softer on Fears Tighter Chinese Policy

A pretty moribund Wednesday but market sentiment has remained tilted towards the positive. In the US, the S&P500 took another stride towards eclipsing the 19 January high with a further 0.5% gain, helped by solid increases in the financials and the IT sector (of course the Nasdaq has already made new highs). US Treasury bonds were a bit weaker after the $21 billion 10 year auction. The auction itself was quite strong, with the bid-to-cover ratio of 3.45 comparing with the average of 2.77 over the last ten 10 year auctions.