- Trump to sell faster access to his Truth Social posts
- Google Gemini launch delayed as tech falls short of goals – report
- Fed’s Logan: Investment demand for AI is big, real and near-term inflationary
- Fed’s Schmid: Recent inflation encouraging but too early to say
- What United Airlines tells us about the shape of the US customer
- US May business inventories +0.3% vs +0.3% expected
- US Pending Home sales for June -5.4% versus -0.5% expected
- US initial jobless claims 208K vs 217K estimate
- US June retail sales +0.2% vs +0.2% expected
- US July Philly Fed business index +41.4 vs +13.0 expected
- Canada June housing starts 239.0K vs 257.9K expected
Markets:
- Nasdaq Comp -1.5%
- Gold down $83 to $3976
- WTI crude oil down 57-cents to $79.03
- US 10-year yields up 1.6 bps to 4.56%
- USD leads, CHF lags
The chipmaker bloodbath continued with Micron shares falling 5.9% to the lowest since May 26 and Sandisk down 12.6%. Overall, more stocks in the S&P 500 gained than declined and banks were particularly healthy. However the big names struggled and Google was also hit by a report that its latest Gemini model is a disappointment. Selling accelerated into the late afternoon before a solid bounce in the final 30 minutes of trading. Shares of Netflix are choppy after reporting earnings following the close.
In terms of economic data, the retail sales report was essentially in line with estimates along with slight upward revisions to the prior. That’s a decent sign for the consumer and the commentary from United Airlines was positive, particularly on affluent consumers.
In FX, the US dollar was generally bid and USD/JPY made some headway once again after the brief reprieve on this week’s CPI. The Fed commentary retained a hawkish tone but the people talking were mostly hawks, so there’s hardly a signal there.
Gold was beaten up and the selling accelerated after a break of $4000. The gold bulls need the war to end and the US dollar to soften but neither is happening at the moment. There are vague reports of attacks on Iran’s infrastructure at the moment, including a bridge in Bandar Khamir.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.