Profit-Taking to Close 2024?

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Monday, Dec. 30. The penultimate day of the year. This is an abridged version of our usual briefing due to the dearth of activity.

State of Play

Stocks dropped on Friday with broad-based selling despite low volumes. As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0730, there isn’t an awful lot to go by:

• Stock index futures are moving a bit lower, with the Nasdaq down 0.4%. S&P 500 futures are down a little less;

• Cryptos aren’t doing much. Bitcoin is down 1% to trade around $94,000;

• Commodities aren’t doing anything. WTI crude oil is up 0.4% to trade close to $71/barrel. Copper is down 0.3%;

• Bonds are seeing a few bids. The 2-year yield is down 3 basis points to 4.30% whilst the 10-year is down 3bps to 4.59% (yields move inversely to prices).

Today’s Known Events

It’s another slow day and another slow week. Very little going on.

We do have a couple of data points of (mild) interest. Chicago PMIs are out at 0945. Economists who were surveyed expect a reading of 42.7, an improvement over the 40.2 recorded last month but still below the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction.

Pending home sales are out at 1000. The expectation here is for an increase of 0.9% month-over-month for November. Last month pending home sales came in hot, at an adjusted 7%. Not sure what that was about. Might have been a seasonal element.

Anyway, neither of these is likely to move markets.

(‘Sun sets on 2024’ by author via Grok AI)