An Inflection Point Between Wages and Prices | Morning Express 08/31/2022
Posted: Aug. 31, 2022, 8:44 a.m.
E-mini S&P (September) / NQ (September)
S&P, yesterday’s close: Settled at 3987.50, down 43.75
NQ, yesterday’s close: Settled at 12,358.75, down 134.00
Fundamentals: As of yesterday, the S&P, NQ, and Dow, have surrendered all gains since the Federal Reserve’s July 27th policy meeting. (And, what a trading range it has been! Congrats to all who followed in both directions.) As one could gather, our theme this week is data dependence. U.S. benchmarks were slammed on the opening bell yesterday, but added selling certainly came on the heels of surging JOLTs Job Openings and Consumer Confidence. The much stronger than expected data was contrary to Fed Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday, where he said, “Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance… While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses.” With this in mind, August jobs data is in the spotlight, and we get a glimpse via the newly reengineered private ADP survey this morning. Although it showed job growth sharply below expectations at 132k versus 288k, wages appear to have surged by +7.6% YoY. Nonfarm Payrolls expect this figure to be +5.3%. Regardless, we do not believe anyone is making intermediate-term trading decisions on the return of ADP today, given that ISM Manufacturing is due tomorrow and Nonfarm Payrolls round out the week on Friday. Cleveland Fed President Mester, a 2022 voter, beat the same drum, saying, “It is far too soon to conclude inflation has peaked and the hike size at any meeting hinges on inflation.” The Cleveland Fed Inflation Nowcast, as of yesterday’s update, expects MoM headline CPI to remain subdued for August at +0.09%, but elevated on a yearly basis at 8.28%. CPI is due on September 13th and the Fed begins their two-day meeting one week later.
Do not miss our daily Midday Market Minute, from yesterday.
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NQ (September)
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Crude Oil (October)
Yesterday’s close: Settled at 91.64, down 5.37
Fundamentals: Crude Oil posted its worst session since July 12th and exuded a tape like the middle of June’s rollover. Fear the Federal Reserve would engineer a recession at all costs in order to get inflation down created a broad commodity meltdown in the middle of June. Are we at the onset of a similar event? The difference now is at that time Crude Oil front month stood at $120 and October at $115. On the opposite side of the Fed is a clear desire from Saudi Arabia to keep the price of Brent above $90. Remember, with elevated energy prices, Saudi Aramco earned a record $50 billion in its latest quarter-end. They are unlikely to surrender this trend willingly. Price action slipped to an early morning low of 88.27, but OPEC+ production data helped spark a rebound. A Reuters survey showed the cartel underproduced by 1.4 mpbd in August versus 1.3 mbpd in July.
Weekly EIA inventory data is due at 9:30 am CT and expectations are for -1.483 mb Crude, -1.178 mb Gasoline, and -0.96 mb Distillates.
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Gold (December) / Silver (December)
Gold, yesterday’s close: Settled at 1736.3, down 13.4
Silver, yesterday’s close: Settled at 18.287, down 0.383
Fundamentals: Gold and Silver have taken their next leg lower with Silver now trading at the lowest level since June 2020. On Sunday night, we sent out a note to all readers that we have gone cautiously Bearish Gold and Silver due to a bear-flag failure and Fed Chair Powell’s overarching hawkishness. We added how we found value in the September Week 2 Puts in Gold for $600 or less. Although the U.S. Dollar Index has yet to official breakout, mostly due to a stabilizing Euro, the U.S. Dollar has broken out against the most important pair to the metals, the Chinese Yuan. This relationship is something that we often reference here. We believe there are two other factors weighing on the metals. First, it has not been uncommon for Gold and Silver to incur end of the month selling. Additionally, the Treasury complex is gearing for a low end of the month settle and rising yields weigh heavily on the precious metals complex.
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Silver (December)
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