Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets in the day ahead. Today is Monday, Dec. 11. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:08) for listeners who want to skip ahead.
State of Play
As we look at our board of indicators at 0625, it looks like a little bit of risk-off is developing:
Stock index futures are pointing to a lower open, with the Nasdaq down 0.3% and S&P 500 down a little less;
Cryptos are selling off. Bitcoin is down 3% this morning to trade around $42,400. It was actually down more overnight;
Commodities are dropping again, with WTI crude oil down 1% to trade around $70.50/barrel. Copper is down 1%;
Bonds are effectively unchanged. The 2-year yields 4.74% and the 10-year 4.26%.
Known Events
It’s a slow start to a busy week. We have another inflation reading tomorrow, the CPI, followed by the Fed meeting that concludes Wednesday. Friday is ‘triple witching day’ — so called because it’s one of four days each year when stock options, index options, and index futures expire simultaneously. There’s usually a lot of talk leading in to this about heightened volatility and indeed the VIX was up 6% on Friday. But we always seem to survive these without the world ending.
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