This Is What Moderation Looks Like
We’re still getting back to normal.
That was a nice little Thursday, many interesting storylines, some substantial, others simply dramatic.Producer Price Index data for May surprised with its softness, providing a little more impetus to the September-rate-cut story.
The PPI was down 0.2 percent month over month and up 2.2 percent year over year, lower than all forecasts from economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Apple $AAPL, marking its best three-day run since 2020, firmly reestablished itself atop the global market capitalization rankings, overtaking Microsoft $MSFT.
AAPL closed with a market cap of $3.285 trillion versus $3.282 trillion for MSFT. It’s the first time since January AAPL closed bigger than MSFT.
There was a little more meme-stock comedy, GameStop $GME shareholders overwhelming livestream servers and forcing postponement of the company’s annual meeting.
That event will happen today, if all goes according to plan.
And Tesla $TSLA shareholders once again endorsed their mercurial CEO and his $50 billion-ish pay package.
They also approved a plan to move the company’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas, as management seeks a friendlier legal venue.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. $JPM was up 1.11 percent, a solid showing after financials had weakened on rising rate-cut sentiment.
The quiet period around this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting now expired, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will make a couple of TV appearances today.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Fed Governor Lisa Cook are also delivering speeches, Goolsbee at 2:00 p.m. ET, Cook at 7:00 p.m.
The most significant economic data release of the day is the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading for June at 10:00 a.m.
The consensus forecast is a print of 72, up from 69.1 in May. The Michigan survey has shown declining sentiment for the last two months.
Apple will conclude its Worldwide Developers Conference today too, though it’s hard to imagine anything any more catalytic for the share price than has already come from the event.