Pretty mundane session for equity markets with all that is going on, from Amazon Prime day to natural disasters (hurricaneS), to geopolitical tensions (still), to further commentary around China stimulus and for a cherry, countdown to US elections! With that said and all considered still a rather mundane session as SPX volumes a few basis points off its 20-day average, main averages were mixed to start after ticking up and holding on to intraday gains. Given the CPI data to come on the back hal…

Absent any economic news and a few days before earnings for the third quarter kick off, investors were left to further interpret last week’s data and what it means for the current rate cut regime. As things currently stand, the expectation (hope?) has been diminished from the high-water mark for cuts. With two meetings left, fed futures have gone from another jumbo cut next month and a little more in December, to less than 50 overall. This new reality (for today at least) had yields across the…

Caution! Jobs may be hot! Traders were stunned this morning after payroll data showed the biggest increase in nonfarm payrolls (+254k vse +150k) since March and a decrease in the unemployment rate to 4.1%. We have officially landed back in good news is good news territory as stocks spiked after the release of the report and held onto their gains for the remainder of the day. The underappreciated Russel was the leader of the day, after years of trading at a discount to the S&P 500, hopes of a so…

Traders have been singing their own version of Stuck in the Middle With You this week, as the Middle East conflicts have created a bigger reason to wait for the all-important Nonfarm Payrolls tomorrow morning. Volumes in the S&P 500 have been declining all week with today being the lightest (S&P 500 -17% versus the 20d) as investors have watched the CME data move from a 50:50 chance of another 50bps Fed cuts in November, to the current 34.6%. Economic data is the driver for those changes as bot…

As US futures started wobbly and rightfully so with the geopolitical backdrop as volatile as it is,, major averages managed to finish in the green (minus the RTW). As US major averages spent majority of the morning in the red, crude continued to rise, while the tide turned late morning/early afternoon as averages began to extend to session highs. Fed speakers Bowman and Barkin did not seem to have much impact with their comments midday. Be on the watch out for Q4 seasonality starting late Octo…

There are only so many things a market can price in and today we got another stark reminder of how tenuous and volatile things remain in the Middle East. The most recent conflagration came as Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel post their targeted ground operation in Lebanon. This was the best 9 months of the year since 1997. So perhaps with month/quarter-end books tidied up, a bit of selling was going to greet the opening of Q4 regardless, this latest conflict an easy excuse. There has bee…

A modest risk off tone defined month and quarter end today until US Indices flipped the script with roughly fifteen minutes to go, righting the ship and then some as the S&P500 closed at yet another all-time high, posting the first positive September since 2019 – seasonality be damned! Powell took to the podium early afternoon and though his pre-prepared remarks broadly reiterated what we heard from the Fed’s meeting earlier this month, the Q&A portion sparked a stark sell off when the Fed chai…

“To get rich is glorious.”

Yet another all-time high for the S&P500 today (the 42nd so far this year to be exact) and Micron Technology wins the MVP award after a strong beat and raise inspired an all-abroad AI rally that saw the SOX close well into the green (+3.5%). We started the day firmly on the front foot thanks to overnight news of further stimulus out of China (a $142bn injection into the state banks no less) ahead of their weeklong holiday. Oil slid starkly for a second session, spurred by a report from the Fina…

There was a little less enthusiasm to go around today after yesterday’s 41st record close for the year, with stark underperformance by the Russell and volumes that remained paltry. Without any real domestic news to ponder (new home sales weren’t narrative shifting), it was the international headlines overnight that had the most impact on the sentiment, delivering a dash of dovishness – Chinese and Swedish rate cuts and a hard slowdown in Australia’s CPI. Treasuries and Brent both saw some profi…