Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets in the day ahead. Today is Friday, Jan. 4, 2024. Jobs Day. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:42) for listeners who want to skip ahead.
State of Play
Stocks dropped again yesterday, but less precipitously than in the first two sessions of the year. It was actually a pretty quiet day. As we look at our board of indicators at 0620, it looks like we could be in for more selling:
Stock index futures are pointing to a lower open, with small caps leading the drop. The Russell 2000 is down 0.9%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are down about 0.3% each;
Bonds are continuing their decline, with the 10-year yield up another 6 basis points to move back north of 4% again, to 4.05%. The 2-year yield is up 4bps to 4.42% (yields move inversely to prices);
Commodities aren’t doing much. WTI crude oil is up 0.5% to trade around $72.50/barrel. Copper is down 0.5%. Believe copper has been down every day this week, which is consistent with the risk-off theme that has developed;
Cryptos are recovering a bit, with Bitcoin up 2% to trade around $43,800.
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