Real Estate Data, Costco Earnings

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets in the day ahead. Today is Tuesday, Sept. 26.

State of Play

Stocks treaded water yesterday, but finished off of the lows. As of 0640 sentiment is moving to risk-off again:

• Stock index futures are down, led by small caps with the Russell 2000 off 0.7%. Nasdaq futures are down 0.6%. S&P 500 down 0.5%;

• Commodities are moving lower as well. WTI crude oil is down <1% to trade around $89/barrel and copper is down 0.4%;

• Bonds are unchanged. The 2-year yields 5.12%. The 10-year 4.51%.

Known Events

We get a bunch of real estate data today, which will be closely watched after housing starts came up short last week. Case-Shiller home prices are out first, at 0900. The 20-city index, the most widely-watched gauge, is expected to increase by 0.2% year-over-year, an improvement over the 1.2% decline recorded last month.

Then at 1000 we get new home sales. The expectation here is for 700,000 transactions, a small drop from the 714,000 seen last month.

We also get consumer confidence from the Conference Board at 1000. Economists expect a reading of 105.6, compared to 106.1 recorded a month ago.

We have some earnings today as well: United Natural Foods (UNFI 0.00%↑) is out before the open at 0930. After the close we’ll hear from Costco (COST 0.00%↑).

The Bottom Line©️

Fear still seems to be the order of the day. The question is when we get to peak fear, because that will be a time to buy. You don’t get the sense that we’re there yet.