Here’s a Strange Mix of Numbers
North American equity indexes look funny.
From a certain point of view, there was a pretty decent selloff on Thursday.The S&P 500 slid 0.88 percent, a big move relative to the recent calm and a possible indication investors, traders, and speculators are starting to see a coming rate cut as a bearish signal about growth and, by extension, earnings.
And the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.95 percent. It was a bad day for big tech generally, an even worse one for Elon Musk and Tesla $TSLA specifically. We take a Deep Dive into Musk and TSLA below.
But the Dow Jones Industrial Average overcame significant declines for Intel $INTC (-3.93 percent), Microsoft $MSFT (-2.48 percent), Amazon.com $AMZN (-2.37 percent), and Apple $AAPL (-2.32 percent) to close up 0.08 percent.
And the Russell 2000 posted a gain of 3.57 percent, which is staggering in the context of those other numbers.
What’s clear and could be somewhat sobering, sooner or later, is that investors, traders, and speculators now expect the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points in September.
And there’s even an expanded contingent that sees a July rate cut as a real possibility.
That’s what happens when the core Consumer Price Index prints at its coolest level in more than three years.
Succession will once again be a topic of discussion during the JPM session, but I’ll be interested in what Jamie Dimon has to say about net interest margin going forward and how his bank is adapting now for the future.
JPMorgan will release its second-quarter results at 7:00 a.m. ET, and Dimon will go live at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Wells Fargo will also report at 7:00 a.m. ET. Its conference call will begin at 10:00 a.m. ET. Citigroup will report at 8:00 a.m ET and will host a conference call at 11:00 a.m. ET.
There are a million interesting stories on any given day in global financial markets.
But earnings are the real thing.
Let’s make sure we pay attention to what the numbers and the managers are saying.
