Nvidia Earnings Day

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Wednesday, Aug. 28. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:15) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Stocks did absolutely nothing yesterday in another quiet session. As we look at our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0650, there is not an awful lot to go by:

• Stock index futures are flat as a board again, with no major US index moving at all from the break-even point;

• Commodities are dropping, with WTI crude oil down 1.5% to trade close to $74/barrel. Copper is down 1.7%. Apparently lower demand the cause of this;

• Cryptos are also moving lower. Bitcoin is down 4% to drop below $60,000;

• Bonds are unchanged. The 2-year yields 3.86% with the 10-year yielding 3.82% — so the yield curve is again dangerously close to uninverting.

Today’s Known Events

The day is finally here: Nvidia (NVDA 0.00%↑) reports earnings after the close. There will surely be a lot of drama around this. Remember that as Nvidia goes, so go semiconductors. And as semiconductors go, so goes tech.

We do have some other earnings this morning to at least tide us over.

• Li Auto (LI 0.00%↑) reported mixed results overnight but raised guidance a bit and the stock is moving a bit higher in the pre-market;

• Foot Locker (FL 0.00%↑) beat estimates but the stock is moving lower for some reason;

• Chewy (CHWY 0.00%↑), Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 0.00%↑), Kohl’s (KSS 0.00%↑), Bath & Body Works (BBWI 0.00%↑), and J.M. Smucker (SJM 0.00%↑) are also due before the open at 0930.

It’s not just Nvidia reporting after the close either but several other large names, including CrowdStrike (CRWD 0.00%↑) and Salesforce (CRM 0.00%↑).