Summer is Over?

The proverbial, if not the actual, end of summer has arrived.  Volumes and activity have not yet come roaring back, but markets’ first moves seem to generally echo the themes that had been prevailing for the past few weeks.  Oil futures are higher, though not enough to fully spook equity and bond traders.  The latter have seen prices meander around unchanged yield levels, while the former are modestly propping up tech and energy shares at the expense of most other sectors.  Perhaps most are looking ahead to this week’s PPI and CPI reports, which became much more important after Fed Governor Waller’s speech last week.

For those of you who were blissfully enjoying the final traditional vacation week of the summer rather than focusing on Fedspeak, Waller’s comments included the following [emphasis added]:

I don’t expect that the employment data will deviate much from what we have been seeing. So my decision on the appropriate stance of policy will be heavily influenced by what we learn about August inflation. If there is continued progress toward our 2 percent goal, then I am willing to support holding the policy rate at its current level.

But if inflation comes in hot, I would consider a rate hike. I judge that policy is currently only slightly restricting aggregate demand, and it may not take much acceleration in inflation to nudge me into supporting tighter policy. If there is evidence that progress toward 2 percent inflation reversed in August, a small adjustment in our stance would help ensure that it resumes.

Stock traders have a well-established pattern, at least during bull markets, of hearing what they want to hear during key policy speeches.  The 1% rally in the S&P 500 (SPX) that ensued on Thursday was a testament to traders’ focusing on the “holding the policy rate” part of the speech and ignoring the “I would consider a rate hike” portion.  Bearing in mind that “traders react but investors consider,” by this morning, SPX had given back the bulk of those gains.  Instead, investors now seem to be considering the potential impact of Thursday’s PPI and Friday’s CPI reports alongside the employment data that did indeed “deviate much from what we have been seeing” thanks to Friday’s much stronger-than-expected 162,000 jump in Nonfarm Payrolls.  It is unusual to find ourselves in a position where PPI and CPI might outweigh the Federal Reserve’s stated preference for the Core PCE (which rose by an as-expected 0.2% in July), but here we are. 

As we look at equity market activity this morning, it is not surprising to see that energy is among the leaders.  October WTI futures (CL) are about 1% higher after the Houthis attacked Saudi facilities overnight.  This is just the latest leg higher in a steady upward move in oil futures – not just in the front-month contract, but throughout much of the commodity’s curve.  At some point, the economy seems as though it will need to reckon with sustained higher energy prices – and not just in crude oil, but in refined products like diesel and gasoline – but for now, markets seem content to push energy stock prices higher.

CL Futures Commodity Curve, Today (white, top), 2 Weeks Ago (purple, top), 1 Month Ago (red, top), with Changes (bottom)

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, utilities and to a lesser extent, real estate stocks are among the best performing sectors as well.  Both are rate sensitive, yet both seem impervious to the persistently high levels of interest rates and the slight rise in yields today.  Healthcare and financials are lower, with the former being dragged down by a 10% drop in Novartis (NVS) after a failed drug trial. 

But in the meantime, investors seem to be sanguine about the path forward for technology stocks and the AI buildout.  Tech remains one of few leading sectors today, and the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) has spent most of the day modestly in the green.  A deal between Qualcomm (QCOM) and Amazon (AMZN) is boosting sentiment, and Broadcom (AVGO) has now fully recovered last week’s post-earnings drop.  We’ll see if that sentiment remains sufficient to keep broader markets generally afloat.