Shipping Concerns After Baltimore Bridge Collapse

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets in the day ahead. Today is Wednesday, March 27. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (4:25) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

Collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Source: CNN

State of Play

Stocks dropped a bit yesterday in a quiet session as the market grappled with assessing the impact of the dramatic bridge collapse in Baltimore. Overnight Swedish retailer H&M reported better-than-expected earnings and that stock is soaring in London trading. Less positive was news from Canada Goose (GOOS 0.00%↑), which announced job cuts. (So it wasn’t just you. Fewer people are wearing those jackets). As we look at our board of indicators at 0625, there is no clear sign of direction quite yet:

• Stock index futures are pointing to gains with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 up about 0.5% each;

• Commodities are trending a bit lower. WTI crude oil is down 0.6% to trade around $81/barrel while copper is down 0.4% Precious metals continue to advance however, with gold up another 0.5%;

• Cryptos have retreated a bit, with Bitcoin down about 1% to trade around $70,000;

• Bonds are unchanged. Been a quiet week there. The 2-year yields 4.60% whilst the 10-year yield is 4.24%.

Unknown Events

Your host finds himself in Baltimore, site of the dramatic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge overnight from Monday into Tuesday. This event will have some economic impact, as the Baltimore port was/is a major destination for shipments of sugar, cars and farm equipment. With port operations now suspended until further notice, companies are left scrambling to look for alternatives. Are other ports equipped to handle the increases in traffic? One economist (a former colleague, as it turns out) says the impact will be minimal.