Purchasing Manager Indexes

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Monday, Dec. 16. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:43) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Bitcoin had another big rally over the weekend and is now trading at fresh record highs, again! Exciting times for Bitcoin bros. As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0630, things are pretty quiet elsewhere:

• Stock index futures are unchanged with no major US index moving more than 0.2% from the break-even point;

• Commodities are moving a little lower after some disappointing data out of China. WTI crude oil is down 1.7% to trade around $70/barrel. Copper is down 0.4%;

• Bonds are unchanged. The 2-year yields 4.23% with the 10-year yielding 4.38%. Quick maths tells you that 15 basis points separates the 2-year from the 10-year, meaning that yield curve is moving further away from inversion;

• The crypto rally appears to have entered a new phase, with Bitcoin up 2% to trade close to $105,000. It broached $106,000 earlier.

Today’s Known Events

It’s a pretty busy week centered on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on Wednesday. Today is mostly quiet though.

Purchasing Manager Indexes from S&P Global are the main data release of the day. This is the so-called ‘flash report’, the first one of the month that is more closely watched by investors.

Economists who were surveyed expect the Services PMI to come in at 55.7, a small decline from the 56.1 recorded last month. The Manufacturing PMI is expected to come in at 49.4 versus 49.7 last month.

‘Purchasing managers’ by author via OpenArt.ai