PCE Deflator, Much Earnings

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Thursday, Oct. 31. Happy Halloween! The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (2:43) followed by Stocks On The Contrarian Radar©️ feat SMCI 0.00%↑ at (3;49) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Microsoft (MSFT 0.00%↑) and Meta (META 0.00%↑) reported disappointing earnings after yesterday’s close and both stocks dropped overnight. That is clearly weighing on sentiment as we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0645:

• Stock index futures are pointing to a lower open with tech leading the drop. The Nasdaq is down 1%. S&P 500 futures are down 0.7%;

• Cryptos appear to have followed tech and are now unchanged around $73,000;

• Commodities aren’t doing much. WTI crude oil is up 0.5%. Copper is unchanged. Silver is moving lower, to the tune of 1.3%;

• Bonds aren’t doing anything. The 2-year yields 4.16% whilst the 10-year yields 4.27%.

Earnings

Another busy day awaits.

The main event is once again after the close when we’ll hear from Amazon (AMZN 0.00%↑), Apple (AAPL 0.00%↑), and Intel (INTC 0.00%↑).

This morning has some big names as well, however: Uber (UBER 0.00%↑), MasterCard (MA 0.00%↑), Roblox (RBLX 0.00%↑), Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCLH 0.00%↑), Altria (MO 0.00%↑), ConocoPhillips (COP 0.00%↑), and Estee Lauder (EL 0.00%↑) are all due to report before the open at 0930.

Economic Data

It’s a busy day here as well:

The PCE Deflator, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, is out at 0830. Economists who were surveyed expect a monthly increase of 0.2% versus 0.1% recorded last month. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, is expected to print at 0.3% month-over-month versus 0.1% at the previous reading.

At the same time we’ll get initial jobless claims. The expectation here is for 229,000 new claims, effectively identical to the 227,000 recorded last month and below the four-week average of 238,000.