trust me

market vibes

September 8…)

“The river never moves.” The ferryman, Sidhartha Herman Hesse

There are no algo-sensitive data releases due until Wednesday when the BLS reports PPI and Thursday’s CPI and jobless claims. PPI is expected to be mixed to lower; CPI MOM and YOY, core and headline, are expected to be unchanged.

In the news, employment data has stirred a hopeless trust issue in BLS data again. In September 2024, the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed the economy had created 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 to March 2024, a revision so incredible markets stopped watching the latest print and traded on labor revisions. On Tuesday, the very same Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages will tell us how many jobs the U.S. economy created or lost from April 2024 to March 2025.

According to MarketWatch, “Wall Street economists suggest it will show the U.S. added 500,000 fewer jobs during that one-year period than previously reported, but the tally could be as high as 1 million fewer jobs. If NFP can’t be trusted, why should I trust CPI? And If I can’t trust the BLS, which only a fool would, why should I trust the Federal Reserve or NVidia earnings? Or, am I stupid?

BBG reports net length in WTI futures is at a 16-year low. What I see in this chart is a lack of trust in OPEC, similar to the BLS. In 2018, the market believed frothy $100/barrel narratives aided by Wall Street that were catastrophically wrong.

Each successive lower spike in new length has been a pump and dump, the last being Biden’s memo on January 6, 2025, which permanently (not) withdrew more than 625 million acres from all future oil and natural gas leasing, which Trump reversed 2 weeks later. OPEC agreed to increase production by a very modest 137,000 bpd this weekend.

In the markets

Stocks are up a few ticks. No notable technical development over the weekend. No news. The narratives are Bessent’s wildly bullish forecast for 2026 and rate cuts—too little, too late—because the economy is weakening rapidly. Thanks.

If you can’t trust data or disputatious guidance between the market, the Treasury, and the FOMC, who or what can you trust? Prices. For now, the stock markets are a wasteland of dead money, dead premiums, and vol control. If you own zero-yielding mega caps, you might as well own gold. At least gold goes up. I prefer silver, but it’s the same idea.

(S&Ps hourly data)

Lots of stupid stuff to get into today, and some easy trades to make and avoid… plus a little eastern widom in the vibe…