Equities (in the pre-market) were looking to extend their selloff into October when Merck announced positive test results on its oral anti-viral COVID treatment. Apparently sparking a notable move from red to green in futures.
So, we’ll see, the pattern of late for U.S. equities has been one of deterioration as the trading day wears on.
SP500 5-day/15-minute graph:
Technically-speaking, that’s, let’s say, not bullish action.
Nor is the S&P 500’s inability so far to recapture its 50-day moving average.
1-year daily:
Like I said yesterday, there’s cause for optimism heading into Q4, so don’t be shocked if indeed stocks regain their stride over the next few weeks. But, like I’ve also stressed, there’s some not-small risk lurking below the surface.
I.e., This is not a time to be swinging for the proverbial fence! Playing strong defense and looking to make a few base hits remains our game plan for the time being…
China and Hong Kong markets were closed overnight, the rest struggled, with all but two of the open markets we track closing lower.
Europe’s mixed this morning, with 9 of the 19 bourses we follow in the red, as I type.
U.S. stocks are mixed as well to start the session: Dow up 127 points (0.38%), SP500 up 0.03%, SP500 Equal Weight up 0.22%, Nasdaq 100 down 0.28%, Nasdaq Comp down 0.21%, Russell 2000 up 0.08%.
The VIX sits at 23.02, down 0.48%.
Oil futures are up 0.12%, gold’s up 0.16%, silver’s up 1.51%, copper futures are up 2.10% and the ag complex is up 0.59%.
The 10-year treasury is up (yield down) and the dollar is down 0.24%.
Led by KRBN (carbon credits), silver, energy stocks, solar stocks and Indian equities — but dragged by MP (rare earth miner), ALB (lithium miner), healthcare stocks, Asia-Pac equities and water stocks — our core portfolio is up 0.13% to start the day.
Charles Mackay’s 19th-Century classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is great reading, for anybody…
“Let us not, in the pride of our superior knowledge, turn with contempt from the follies of our predecessors. The study of the errors into which great minds have fallen in the pursuit of truth can never be uninstructive.
As the man looks back to the days of his childhood and his youth, and recalls to his mind the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at that time, that he may wonder at them, so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed the ages fled.
He is but a superficial thinker who would despise and refuse to hear of them merely because they are absurd. No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be capable of no improvement from the retrospect of its past folly and credulity.
And not only is such a study instructive: he who reads for amusement only, will find no chapter in the annals of the human mind more amusing than this. It opens out the whole realm of fiction – the wild, the fantastic, and the wonderful, and all the immense variety of things “that are not, and cannot be; but that have been imagined and believed.”
Have a great day!