PMIs, Earnings From Amazon, Apple

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Thursday, May 1, 2025. Happy May Day to those who celebrate. Markets in Europe and much of Asia are closed today.

State of Play

Stocks rallied into yesterday’s close to eke out a gain for the seventh day in a row. After the close there were positive earnings from Microsoft (MSFT 0.00%↑) and Meta (*META 0.00%↑). As we eye or board of indicators for signs of direction at 0700 ET, that is helping risk sentiment:

• Stock index futures are rising, led by tech. The Nasdaq is up 1.7% with S&P 500 futures 1.1% to the good;

• Commodities are continuing to drop, though copper prices are an exception. These are up 1%. WTI crude oil is down almost 3% to trade around $56.50/barrel. Gold and silver getting dumped as well. Gold is down close to 3%, silver -1%;

• Cryptos are moving higher. Bitcoin is up 1% to trade north of $96,000;

• Bonds are also seeing some bids. The 10-year yield is down 3 basis points to 4.14% (yields move inversely to expectations).

PMIs are the main economic data release today. Art by author via Grok AI