Daily check

S&P 500 bears missed yesterday‘s opportunity to force a decisive close lower – several key sectors led the intraday recovery even though bonds weren‘t on board. The Fed minutes‘ initial dovish interpretation duly gave way to the still accented hawkish decisions ahead – it‘s still reasonable to expect 75bp hike in Sep with perhaps 25bp in Nov while diving increasingly more into balance sheet shrinking. The focus is now shifting to the real economy performance, and it almost seems that the reverse of bad is the new good, is kicking in in stocks. At the same time, slightly better unemployment claims are helping put a floor below commodities today.

Gold, silver and miners

Precious metals couldn‘t do any better even if inflation expectations have been resilient over the latest two months. Chopping along while the bearish headwinds prevail, is the most likely outcome for the weeks ahead.

Crude oil

Crude oil is ready to turn up next, but I wonder how long that would last, and whether any technically important levels would be conquered. For now, the focus on drawdown in inventories and Fed not yet making purely hawkish noises, can prevail.

Copper

Copper may be carving out a short-term bottom, but it‘s early to tell. The intraday pause in the dollar and those marginally higher stocks and cryptos, look suspect today.

Bitcoin and Ethereum

Nothing new in cryptoland really – the bears going to turn up the heat. Underperforming on the upswings, outperforming on the downswings.