evening wrap, september 4
market vibes
A META extraction of Larrry Fink’s worst nightmare:
Among other stories in the news today at home and abroad…
Eleven hours ago, Macron said, with Zelenskyy at his side from the Élysée, “We are ready. There will be no peace. The war will end with capitulation.” Five hours ago, Maria Zakharova, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said this.
Macron: "26 countries from the 'Coalition of the Willing' have committed to deploy their troops in Ukraine after the ceasefire."
On August 21, Medvedev said, “We’ve stated it clearly, no NATO forces as peacekeepers. Russia will not accept such a ‘security guarantee.” On September 3 in Beijing, Putin addressed the possibility of foreign military deployment in Ukraine, stating that Russia would pursue its goals by force if no deal is reached with Ukraine. This statement was made amid reports of 100,000 Russian troops massed near Pokrovsk, a mid-sized hub of transportation and commerce in Ukraine that many military observers think, if lost, would signal the military collapse of Ukraine.
I scoured the wires and AI for details on the call between Trump and the Europeans today, but there wasn’t much to glean. I gather from unsourced reports the Zoom call was disharmonious. The E-3 demanded Trump immediately impose maximum sanctions on Russia. Trump was annoyed that Europe has paid Putin billions of dollars for energy and energy-related Russian exports this year.
In the markets
Counter-trend trading dominated metals markets in NY today. Gold stabilized above $3,600.00 and stopped trading around 12:00 NY time. There is no sign of failure in this move higher. It’s not optimal to have an immediate retest, but not uncommon for gold. Nothing to do but wait.
(Comex December gold hourly data)
Silver got slammed on the equity opening. SLV shorts, I think. The SLV expiration is tiny tomorrow. Whenever you see some hard selling in silver, especially when open interest is extremely low and huge call option strikes are ATM… that’s the short, in my opinion.
(Comex September silver hourly data)
Oil was beset with rumors but finished lower for a second day of losses. Spreads were mixed. October was strong versus the front 4, implying refiners aren’t taking any chances. If oil goes lower, they’ll price it downstream.
(October WTI hourly data)
Yesterday, Bloomberg’s lead was “Bonds are in trouble.” Today, Santelli was hyperventilating about falling yields. The 10-year note (chart below) traded at the highest level since April 7 in continuous daily data. ADP came in very dovish at 54,000 jobs. Fifty basis points entered the pre-FOMC debate with both feet.
Stocks continued a rally that started in the late morning on Wednesday, trading higher bell to bell without a single downtick today. Volume was very meh in futures but exceptionally light in the SPY ETF. BBG reports the S&P 500 cash index made an all-time high. Ah, the power of cheese.
Usually, stock market rallies arrive in the last hour of trading, but today was a trend day (*note the chart). Yesterday was the express elevator. Today was the express escalator.
In other markets, copper and platinum finished lower, DXY was mostly unchanged, and bitcoin observed.
my vibe
I really don’t have a strong view on NFP either way. We’ll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. A lot of markets are at the very high highs; gold, stocks, silver, bitcoin. Others are on the dead lows like oil and the dollar. Oil makes the most sense so it’s probaly the most dangerous either way. The dollar is the wild card that everyone seems to ignore. And wages… don’t forget wages.
One of the best and worst innings in baseball… 23 minutes
Night all…
JJ
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Charts and data CQG and Bloomberg
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That Video from Kiev was debated heated as hell. It´s only a "mouchoir" !!! Bloody CT´s !!!
"My Vibe" (HT Alyosha ;-)) is: these people are crooked on so many levels, it´s truely not that important if they´re also on dope.
at this stage, it is becoming clearer that the EU leadership are personally profiting from the war, and regardless of the outcome, about which they seemingly don't care, they will all walk away much richer.