​Mid-Weekly: IBEX, FTSE RV Spotted, Lincoln Teams With BlackRock

U.S. equities continued to rip higher today, with the S&P 500 jumping another 1.3% to 2,241.35. BAML strategists, meanwhile, released their 2017 outlook today, putting a 2,300 target on the benchmark. In the U.S. this week, we look at Lincoln and BlackRock’s bid to battle through the effects of the DoL’s fiduciary rules with ETF fee-based annuities, set for release Q1, 2017. Also in the U.S., Some insurance companies have been entering variance swaps on the S&P 500 recently, typically as a gamma hedge, while in Europe investors should look at attractively priced relative value strategies that pit the IBEX 35 against the FTSE 100, such as call versus call trades with March expiries.