Ringside · Pre-Bell · September 7
- Seoul's Kospi climbed 4.61% to 6,995.39, with SK Hynix up 8.26% and Samsung up 5.68%.
- Brent trades near $96.83 after American strikes on three Iranian tankers over the weekend.
- No American trading today for Labor Day; August consumer prices arrive Friday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Indexes
American exchanges are closed today for Labor Day and the Treasury market is shut alongside them, so this session belongs to everyone else. Asia took the room. Seoul's Kospi added 4.61% to 6,995.39 as SK Hynix gained 8.26% and Samsung Electronics 5.68%, on the memory shortage that had already lifted Micron and SanDisk in New York on Friday. Tokyo put on 1,378 points, or 2.12%, on a Prime Market that counted 883 decliners against 630 gainers: a dozen chip names doing the work for a whole benchmark. Hong Kong went the other way, giving back 238 points. Europe has kept inside a tenth of a percent either way, with oil and gas up 1.14% and health care down more than 1%.
| US benchmark | Friday close | % Chg Fri | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,718.60 | -0.38% | Twenty-day average at 7,708.70 |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,506.99 | -0.29% | |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 53,414.25 | -0.51% | Returned 271.86 of Thursday's 624 |
| Russell 2000 | 2,975.65 | +0.25% | Fifty-day average sits at 2,988.49 |
| Overnight | Level | % Chg | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nikkei 225 | 66,399.84 | +2.12% | 883 decliners against 630 gainers |
| Kospi | 6,995.39 | +4.61% | Still 24.8% under June's 9,301.88 |
| Hang Seng | 25,413.12 | -0.93% | Off Friday's two-week high |
| CSI 300 | 4,575.02 | +0.59% | China trade figures due this week |
In the News
Rates, FX, Commodities
Government bonds are closed with the exchanges, so Friday's curve is exactly where this week restarts. It came out of the employment report doing two things at once: short maturities cheapened on a rate increase that suddenly looked likely again, while the thirty-year rallied.
| Treasury | Friday yield | Chg Fri | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Year | 4.37% | +3 bp | Where the week restarts |
| 5-Year | 4.54% | +2 bp | |
| 10-Year | 4.78% | +1 bp | |
| 30-Year | 5.24% | -1 bp | Only maturity to rally Friday |
| 2s10s spread | 41 bp | -2 bp |
| Currency / Commodity | Level | % Chg | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dollar index (DXY) | 98.94 | -0.24% | |
| EUR/USD | 1.1629 | +0.07% | |
| USD/JPY | 154.74 | -0.97% | Yen gained more than 2% last week |
| WTI crude | $91.72 | — | Up 9.7% last week |
| Brent crude | $96.83 | — | Tehran threatens a zone beyond Hormuz |
| Gold (spot) | $4,396.70 | — | Lower since Friday's employment figures |
| Natural gas | $2.95 | — | Holding near a two-month high |
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that the naval blockade stays and that a nuclear agreement with Tehran is not close. Bullion is the odd one out in a week of escalation, slipping since Friday's employment figures because a higher policy rate raises the cost of holding an asset that pays no interest.
Technicals
Nothing traded in New York today, so every level here is Friday's, and every one of them is what Tuesday opens against.
Ten points separate a 7,718.60 close on the S&P 500 from its twenty-day average at 7,708.70, which is the first support a gap lower would have to hold; the index sits 1.0% below its highest close of the past twelve months. The Nasdaq 100 ended at 29,544.15, about 4% below its own year high and clear of a fifty-day average at 29,229.10. Beneath both sits the Russell 2000, at 2,975.65 against a fifty-day of 2,988.49, and no other large American benchmark is trading below one.
In Treasuries the two-year at 4.37% and the ten-year at 4.78% leave the spread between them at 41 basis points. A curve that steepens from the front on Tuesday would say the September increase is being taken more seriously; one that flattens would say Friday's employment reading is already absorbed. Among single names, Dell Technologies (DELL) closed at $524.14, a level no session in the past year has bettered, while The Trade Desk (TTD) at $14.43 lost 4.50% on its way out of the large-cap index.
Top Movers
The moves worth knowing came late on Friday or overnight.
Gainers
Bloom Energy (BE) closed Friday at $252.87 and rose further in extended trading once S&P Dow Jones Indices named it to the S&P 500, reaching $266.14 after hours. The 7.35% it had already added during the session looks like a bet placed in advance. Every fund tracking the index must own it before September 21, which is a mechanical bid rather than a judgement about fuel cells.
SK Hynix gained 8.26% in Seoul and Samsung Electronics 5.68%, between them most of the Kospi's 4.61%. High-bandwidth memory keeps selling out ahead of the capacity to make it, and the Korean pair prices that shortage first. In New York it lands on Micron (MU) at $1,016.59 and SanDisk (SNDK) at $1,740.00.
Nordex, the German wind-turbine manufacturer, jumped 11.4% to the top of the Stoxx 600 after Bank of America analysts moved it to a buy rating.
Losers
Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS) closed at $58.09 on Friday and fell about 10% in the trading that followed the 4:41 p.m. release. Ionis discovered pelacarsen and licensed it to Novartis in 2019, so it keeps the royalty and the disappointment without having paid for the trial. Chief executive Brett Monia said the results "provide clarity that will meaningfully inform future cardiovascular care," which is the vocabulary of a wind-down.
Amgen (AMGN) finished at $437.23 and gave up roughly 5% afterwards. Its olpasiran is the other late-stage candidate built on lowering lipoprotein(a), and Friday's failure questions the premise underneath both drugs, not the way Novartis ran its study. Reuters put analyst estimates of pelacarsen's peak annual sales at $3 billion to $6 billion before the result landed.
Macro Calendar
No American data today, and no official can comment on what comes next: the blackout before the September 15-16 meeting began Saturday and runs to September 17.
| Release | Day | Time (ET) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFIB small business optimism | Tuesday | 6:00 a.m. | |
| European Central Bank decision | Thursday | 8:15 a.m. | |
| Producer prices, August | Thursday | 8:30 a.m. | First of the two inflation readings |
| Consumer prices, August | Friday | 8:30 a.m. | Last one before the decision |
Friday's consumer price report decides the week, and it arrives with crude 9.7% higher over five sessions. Energy feeds the headline directly and the core measure only slowly, so a hot headline over a contained core is the awkward combination the market may have to sort out alone.
Notable Earnings This Session
Nothing reports today.
The week's slate begins on Tuesday with GameStop (GME), Chewy (CHWY) follows on Wednesday, and Kroger (KR) closes it out on Friday. Thursday evening carries the two that matter, and both go in bruised: consensus for the Oracle quarter is adjusted earnings of $1.74 a share on $19.14 billion of revenue. Oracle (ORCL) closed Friday at $158.78 and Adobe (ADBE) at $266.51, each down about a fifth this year.
Drivers
- Brent at $96.83 and West Texas Intermediate at $91.72 have absorbed a weekend of tanker strikes and Tehran's promise of a restricted maritime zone beyond Hormuz. Oil and gas led Europe today, up 1.14%. American energy has had no chance to mark any of it: the sector fund closed Friday at $64.06, down 0.87% in a session that ended before the strikes.
- Korean memory names added between 5% and 9% while New York was shut, and the American equivalents were already extended going into the holiday. Micron closed at $1,016.59, SanDisk at $1,740.00, and Dell at $524.14 after a three-session run of 23%. Gaps of that size on a Tuesday morning get faded about as often as they get followed, and the first hour will settle which.
- Short-term interest-rate futures went into the long weekend implying a 58% chance of an increase on September 16, per the CME's FedWatch tool. Nobody at the Federal Reserve can add to that before Friday's inflation report. The two-year note enters the week at 4.37%.