Are stocks “a buy” or “cruising for a bruising”?

Markets were mixed on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent and the Nikkei 225 fell 0.2 percent but the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.3 percent.

The US 10-year Treasury yield hovered around 3.07 percent, gold inched up 0.1 percent while US crude oil futures fell modestly.

Over the medium term, however, gold has been falling while crude oil has rallied to its highest level in years as the US dollar rallied.

Oppenheimer's head of technical analysis Ari Wald said that this could be a sign of “bullish risk appetite”.

Dennis Davitt, partner at Harvest Volatility Management, said: “Equities are a buy here because they're good hedges against inflation, so the inflationary aspects of oil outside of the dollar are what you should really look towards.”

However, Economic Cycle Research Institute co-founder Lakshman Achuthan was less optimistic.

“Since late last year, consumer spending growth has been easing, as has personal income growth,” he told CNBC. He said that “the risk is rising” and that stocks are “cruising for a bruising”.