Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Thursday, July 31. The last trading day of the month!
State of Play
Meta (META 0.00%↑) and Microsoft (MSFT 0.00%↑) reported positive earnings after the close. This brought some optimism back to the market that was unimpressed with yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting. There were more positive earnings this morning but the PCE Deflator came in a tiny bit hot.
As we eye or board of indicators for signs of direction at 0840 ET, things are still pointing to risk-on:
Stock index futures are moving higher, led by tech. The Nasdaq is +1.3% thanks in no small part to META and MSFT earnings. The S&P 500 is +0.9%. Small caps are not going along for the ride for whatever reason as the Russell 200 is -0.5%;
In commodities land the big move is by copper, which is down 22% after President Trump announced tariffs on copper products. WTI crude oil is unchanged, trading around $69.50/barrel. Silver is rallying big time, up 2.5% but gold is unchanged;
Bonds are seeing a few bids, despite the PCE print. The 10-year yield is down 4 basis points to 4.34% (yields move inversely to prices);
Cryptos are weirdly unchanged through all of this. Bitcoin is +0.5% to trade around $118,400.
