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THURSDAY MARKET UPDATE |
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Wholesale inflation came in hot at 8:30. Then I read the breakdown, and it was the diesel bill I flagged on Tuesday. |
■ | Stocks are lower across the board. The S&P 500 is off about 0.6%, small companies worse at 1.3%. ■ | Apple turned green. The foldable iPhone landed at $1,999 and the stock closed Wednesday higher. ■ | Gold gave back the bounce. Down 1.18% to $4,346, with silver falling three times as hard.
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Read that gold line again. The hedge sold off on the day the thing it hedges showed up in the data. Somebody is still buying it, and it isn't retail. |
-Nathan Reed |
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SILVER FELL THREE TIMES HARDER THAN GOLD |
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Gold dropped 1.18% to $4,346 an ounce. Silver fell 3.41% to $66.31 — three times as hard. That ratio is the signature of a rates move, not a fear move. |
Which is strange, because the number that caused it was an inflation number. Producer prices — what businesses pay before you do — ran 5.4% above last year. The metal that hedges a shrinking dollar sold off on the day the dollar's problem showed up in print. Hike odds for next week jumped past 70%, the 10-year went to 4.92%, and real yields did the rest. |
The composition is the part nobody traded. Wholesale energy is up 24.4% in a year. Services rose one-tenth of one percent. Central banks kept buying through a 22% drawdown, and tomorrow's consumer print says whether they were early or right. |
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SMALL CAPS ARE PAYING FOR EVERYONE ELSE'S FUEL BILL |
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The Russell 2000 — the index of small American companies — fell 1.32% today. The S&P 500 lost 0.59% and the Nasdaq 0.97%. That's two sessions running as the worst performer, while the 10-year yield rose 8 basis points and the fear gauge climbed to 17.2 from 14.1 last Friday. |
Small companies get squeezed from both ends here. They carry more floating-rate debt, so a higher policy rate lands straight on their interest bill. They have less pricing power, so a 24% jump in wholesale energy comes out of their margin instead of their customers' wallets. A rate hike does nothing to the fuel price. It stacks a second cost on the businesses least able to absorb the first. |
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S&P 500 Heatmap — September 10, 2026. Credit: Finviz |
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"Services inflation came in at one-tenth of one percent. The Fed is about to raise the price of money to fix the price of diesel" |
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APPLE, FREEPORT, COOPER |
Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 1.19% ) — launched the iPhone Duo foldable at $1,999 and closed Wednesday higher, the first product event under new chief John Ternus. |
Fox Corp $FOXA ( ▲ 1.46% ) — rose on management commentary about its $22 billion Roku deal, even as the Justice Department widened its review. |
Freeport-McMoRan $FCX ( ▼ 6.84% ) — fell as copper broke sharply from record highs, taking Southern Copper down 7.1% with it. |
Cooper Companies $COO ( ▼ 15.04% ) — the contact-lens maker cut guidance after a strategic review, the S&P 500's worst performer today. |
For real-time data, I recommend monitoring Finviz. |
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TECH | Dell hit all-time highs, with one broker sketching a path to $1,000 a share on AI server demand. |
CHEMICALS | Chemours, DuPont and Corteva settled PFAS contamination claims for $455 million. |
COPPER | Copper broke from record highs — a sharp divergence from oil, which kept climbing. |
FED | Odds of at least one hike before year-end pushed above 85%. |
INFLATION | Consumer prices land tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. — the last number the Fed sees before it decides. |
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Consumer prices at 8:30 tomorrow. After that the Fed stops guessing and starts explaining. |
Nathan Reed | Profits & Insights |
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