spare a dime?
market vibes
July 9…)
“I love rock n roll so put another dime in the juke box, baby.” Alan Merrill, 1975
FOMC minutes at 2 PM EDT, initial claims tomorrow
In commodity news this morning, Citi says copper will trade under $9000 on the LME. The US will draw down stocks in the US, currently at 7-year highs (chart below).
Crude inventories were up 7 million barrels last week, gasoline fell 2.2 million, distillates fell 800k according to the API. *Note: The API, like ADP, is a private subscription service, and the DOE, like the BLS, is a government agency. Weekly data was once wildly divergent between the DOE and API, but recently they have been well correlated.
Bloomberg is forecasting a 1.9 mm barrel draw in crude, -200k in gasoline, and -900k in distillates. Bloomberg is rarely correct, in my opinion, although another draw in distillates is the consensus.
AI update: Student debt has been buried like financial toxic waste for so many years, the debts, compounded like federal debt, cannot be repaid. Yet the Dept of Education will start compounding interest on 7.7 million erstwhile child borrowers again from Aug. 1. According to Grok, surveys and studies say 52% of recent four-year college graduates are working in jobs that don’t typically require a bachelor’s degree. Rates are higher for majors like liberal arts, humanities, or 68% for criminal justice majors.
Producer prices in China fell 3.6% in June, the most in nearly two years. RMB has been unchanged against USD for 2 months.
In the markets
The copper market is taking a breath. Comex inventories are ample, about 10% of annual US consumption, which is going to rise in a manufacturing economy. Meanwhile, Chile, the largest copper exporter to the US, is still negotiating tariff details. Codelco says nothing has been decided yet.
Technically, there is no safe entry for a trade. The market was totally blindsided yesterday, and Trump could change his mind by lunchtime. However, there is a pesky shortage narrative lurking in the background since the days of Jeff Currie at GS.
Today’s checkdown is just that, an update of an overnight session that had a good night’s sleep. However gold is flirting with danger, the dollar is flirting with a breakout, and the rest of market seems to have overslept?? Here we go!
