Retailer Earnings, Fed Beige Book

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Wednesday, May 29. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:00) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Stocks bounced around a bit yesterday, with the Nasdaq finishing at a fresh record close. The S&P 500 (SPY 0.00%↑) was unchanged. Then after the close American Airlines (AAL 0.00%↑) slashed its sales outlook, which seems to have affected investors’ moods. As we look at our board of indicators at 0640, risk appetite appears to be retrenching a bit:

• Stock index futures are pointing to a lower open, with small caps leading the drop. The Russell 2000 is down 1.2% with Nasdaq 100 (QQQ 0.00%↑) and S&P futures down 0.6%;

• Commodities are mixed. WTI crude oil is up 0.8% to trade north of $80/barrel for the first time in awhile. Copper is down 0.8%;

• Bonds aren’t doing much a day after selling off. The 2-year yield is 4.96% whilst the 10-year yield 4.56%;

• Cryptos are unchanged, with Bitcoin trading around $68,000.

Today’s Known Events

Earnings are back in focus, but these don’t get interesting until after the close: Retailers Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF 0.00%↑), Chewy (CHWY 0.00%↑), Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS 0.00%↑), and Advanced Auto Parts (AAP 0.00%↑) provide a pretty good cross-segment of that market, focused (in order) on clothes, pets, sporting goods, and auto parts.