“It’s Over”

(Today’s musical accompaniment: Roy Orbison)

Many traders in the US awoke to a surprise this morning.  If you’re like me, you went to bed with overnight futures largely shrugging off yesterday afternoon’s attack on Iran after seeing that it was over after a few hours, then awoke to see them sharply lower.  My first reaction was “what did I miss?”  That would be the President’s comments about the interim agreement with Iran, saying, “I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore.”  Geopolitics reasserted themselves at the NATO meeting today.

True story: For no apparent reason, I woke up just before 4am ET today.  This wasn’t simply a matter of rolling over – I simply couldn’t go right back to sleep.  One thing that typically works for me to fall back asleep is to turn on the TV to watch boring old reruns, and I do that in the guest room to avoid bothering my wife.  The set was tuned to a news channel with the President speaking.  Rather than risking something that might garner my attention – and that something turned out to be the “it’s over” comment – I groggily flipped to some ‘70s era crime show.  That did the trick, and I then slept until my alarm went off.  At that point, I checked to see what markets were doing and I was in for a shock.  I guess I should have stuck with the news…

The graph below clearly delineates the plunge that occurred at 3am CT:

ES September Futures, Overnight Through Current Trading, 1-Minute Candles

Source: Interactive Brokers, past performance is not indicative of future returns.

It is clear that upon waking up, several traders decided to buy the dip.  As we’ve noted many times, it has worked for so many so often that their reaction is quite understandable.  And today it worked again, at least for a while – especially regarding the Nasdaq 100 (NDX).  The NQ futures also plunged overnight, but the index managed to claw back to unchanged for a moment or two before succumbing to gravity:

NQ September Futures, Overnight Through Current Trading, 1-Minute Candles

Source: Interactive Brokers, past performance is not indicative of future returns.

One might wonder why today’s attempted bounce failed when so many others succeeded, particularly in recent weeks.   Oil was a key culprit.  WTI (CL) and Brent (COIL) futures have remained stubbornly higher throughout the session, with both rising about 8% this morning:

Intraday CL August Futures (red/green 1-minute candles) and COIL September Futures (blue line)

Source: Interactive Brokers, past performance is not indicative of future returns.

Even though today’s bump in oil prices is significant, they remain far below the worst levels seen at the height of the crisis.  That said, today’s moves take us back to the levels that prevailed prior to the June 17^th signing of the interim ceasefire memorandum.  We’ve wiped out a fair amount of progress in just two sessions:

3-Month Rolling CL Futures (red/green candles) and COIL Futures (blue line), with CL roll dates marked on X-axis

Source: Interactive Brokers, past performance is not indicative of future returns.

Barring some major changes to the news flow this afternoon, we’re back on geopolitical watch for the next few sessions.  Today’s big news was supposed to be the release of the minutes of the most recent FOMC meeting, with market watchers hoping to glean nuances about how the first meeting with Kevin Warsh at the helm might have differed from those run by his predecessor (and current Governor) Jerome Powell.  The Iran news certainly buried that lede. 

The primary question for traders right now is the fate of the “ratchet effect.”  We have frequently noted that equities had been rewarding any positive commentary about prospects for peace in the Persian Gulf while largely ignoring any backsliding in the process.  Today there was quite a bit of backsliding and no positivity, causing traders’ attempts to ignore those factors to fail.  We’ll see if some new developments change that mood this afternoon.  I’ll be particularly watching oil futures for clues.