bank wars

market vibes

July 15…)

“It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune.” Friedrich Schiller

CPI comes in mixed to dovish.

In the news

NVidia, now valued at 2.2 times the market cap of the bottom 100 stocks in the S&P 500 index, is higher this morning on expectations they will resume selling chips to China. Therefore, all stock indexes are higher in its mighty wake.

The administration plans to announce $70 billion in new AI initiatives related to energy, according to Fox. Oil is beginning to balance two conflicting narratives: the obvious one being more oil from OPEC+ and Saudi Arabia, and the mysterious one being tension in prices that no one can explain with data. In any case, the same fundamental demand forces affecting copper are going to affect energy. The rub for crude oil is its primary market is transportation, not power. Natural gas is the flip side of the copper coin

Reuters says bitcoin is making new highs on institutional demand, not speculation. "The rise has been fueled by strong flows into bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and rising corporate treasury allocations." Technical behavior in the ETF and futures market agrees, to wit, very low volume and motionless open interest. The reason being, I think, algorithms have no fear of missing out.

JPM's Q2 trading and sales handily beat estimates by nearly $500 million.

In the markets

The S&P is showing very little response to a gentle CPI report. The dearth of confirming technical activity is almost irrelevant because it is the norm now not the exception. Fwiw, Nvidia and Meta are worth more than the bottom 50% of the S&P 500 index. Imagine an index called the S&P 2. If you can grasp that you’ll have the essence of the stock market in 2025.

Next up gold of course, a tutorial on the crude curve, bonds look much steeper, the dollar is iffy, bitcoin Plus the powell beatdown in the vibe.