Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets in the day ahead. Today is Monday, March 25. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (2:09) for listeners who want to skip ahead.
State of Play
As we look at our board of indicators at 0630, things are pretty quiet with no clear signs of direction:
Stock index futures are down a bit, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 off about 0.3% each;
Commodities are up a bit, with WTI crude oil up 0.8% to trade around $81/barrel with copper up 0.2%. Gold is up another 0.5% as well;
Cryptos are also gaining ground, with Bitcoin up 3% to trade around $67,200;
Bonds are unchanged. The 2-year yields 4.62% whilst the 10-year yields 4.23%.
Today’s Known Events
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic is due to speak at the University of Cincinnati this morning at 0830. Fed Governor Lisa Cook is due to speak at 1030, apparently on the Fed’s dual mandate “and the balance of risks.”
Both Bostic and Cook are full FOMC voting members this year so they are worth paying attention to for that purpose alone. They’re also the first public comments to come from the Fed since last week’s meeting.
We also have new home sales up at 1000. Economists who were surveyed expect this number to print at 675,000, a small improvement on the 661,000 seen last month.
The Bottom Line©️
A pretty quiet start to the week then. Bostic is always good for a quote so would expect that to be the main event of the day.
On Friday we get the next iteration of Personal Consumption Expenditures, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. That is probably the main data release of the week. It’s also the only thing really to look forward to. So we may be in a holding pattern unless the Fed speakers say something and/or there is an unexpected event of course.
Housekeeping
Obviously this is not investment advice (duh). Do your own research, make your own decisions.
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Fed Speakers: Bostic, Cook