Slow Start to Busy Week With CPI, Earnings

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Monday, April 8. The Bottom Line segment of today’s podcast starts at (3:24) for listeners who want to skip ahead.

State of Play

Stocks advanced on Friday, rebounding from an early bout of selling after non-farm payrolls came out better than anticipated. The Bull Market lives. As we look at our board of indicators at 0635, things are a bit all over the place:

• Cryptos have resumed their rally. Bitcoin is up 4% to trade around $72,000 putting it within range of the all-time high of $73,741;

• Bonds are selling off, continuing their trend from Friday. The 2-year yield is up 5 basis points to 4.78% whilst the 10-year is up 7bps to 4.44% (yields move inversely to prices);

• Stock index futures are flat as a board with just the Russell 2000 that tracks small caps moving at all from the break-even point, and that barely, down 0.2%;

• Commodities aren’t doing much either. WTI crude oil is down <1% to trade around $86/barrel. Copper is up 0.9%.

Today’s Known Events

There’s very little coming today. The Conference Board produces its Employment Trends Index for March at 1000. There’s no economist estimate for that.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speaks tonight at the University of Montana of all places. That’s at 1900. Kashkari has been one of the more hawkish members of the FOMC (even though he’s not a voting member this year) but that news is already out. It was just a few days ago when he said there was the possibility of no rate cuts this year.