Retail Sales

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Friday, Feb. 14. Valentine’s Day.

State of Play

Stocks rallied yesterday, shrugging off a hotter-than-anticipated producer prices report. The after market hours brought positive earnings from Coinbase (COIN 0.00%↑), Airbnb (ABNB 0.00%↑), DraftKings (DKNG 0.00%↑) and others . As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0540, all is quiet:

• Stock index futures are flat as a board at this early hour. No major US index is moving at all from the break-even point;

• Commodities aren’t doing much. WTI crude oil is unchanged at $71.50/barrel. Copper is unchanged. Silver is rallying however, up 3%;

• Cryptos are flat. Bitcoin is unchanged at $97,000;

• Bonds aren’t doing anything either. The 10-year yields 4.53%.

Today’s Known Events

Retail sales are the only data release of the day worth paying attention to, out at 0830. Economists who were surveyed expect a drop of 0.2% month-over-month for January. That’s a lot lower than the +0.4% recorded in December, but easily explained by seasonal elements — December being peak holiday shopping season.

Core retail sales, which exclude automobiles and are therefore seen as a ‘purer’ gauge of consumer spending, are actually expected to increase by 0.3% MoM after rising 0.4% in December.