Some Earnings

Good morning contrarians! Welcome to the Daily Contrarian, our morning look at events likely to move markets. It is Tuesday, Feb. 18. Welcome back after the long weekend.

State of Play

As we eye our board of indicators for signs of direction at 0630, things are pretty quiet:

• Stock index futures are showing a few signs of life, with the Nasdaq up 0.4% and S&P 500 up 0.3%;

• Commodities are mixed. WTI crude oil is up 1% to trade around $71.50/barrel as gold (+0.8%) and silver (+0.4%) resume their ascent. But copper is down 1.3% and natural gas down 3%. On the topic of gold, Goldman Sachs just raised their year-end target to $3,100/oz, which is probably what is driving the precious metal higher this morning;

• Cryptos are unchanged. Bitcoin is holding around $95,700;

• Bonds are seeing a bit of selling. The 10-year yield is up 4 basis points to 4.51% (yields move inversely to prices).

Today’s Known Events

We start with earnings:

• Baidu (BIDU 0.00%↑), the Chinese online retailer, overnight beat top- and bottom-line estimates but apparently found a different way to disappoint investors as the stock is down ~1% in the pre-market;

• Chemours (CC 0.00%↑), a chemicals company that for some reason seems to ebb and flow with the economy, just reported mixed results but had some positive things to say about its outlook and the stock is rising in the pre-market. (Chemours is a portfolio holding going back many years, which is why The Contrarian is aware of its ebb and flow coinciding with broader economic trends. On some level this makes sense as companies will increase their orders of chemicals as the economy ramps up — and conversely dial back orders as the economy contracts or growth slows).

• After the close at 1600 we’ll hear from Arista Networks (ANET 0.00%↑) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY 0.00%↑), among others.

Baidu and Arista Networks, the earnings highlights today. Art by author via Grok AI