vaccine

Did the Pandemic Finally Peak?

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What’s in Today’s Report:

  • What Quietly Positive COVID News Means for Markets
  • Favorable Oil Fundamentals

S&P futures came for sale this morning amid more margin call concerns (like we saw Monday) as some of the most shorted U.S. companies continue to squeeze higher, led by GME which rose nearly 150% in overnight trade.

Economically, Chinese Industrial Profits encouragingly jumped to 20.1% in December from 15.5% in November while the GFK Consumer Climate report badly missed estimates which underscores the negative effects of lockdowns on sentiment in Europe.

Looking into today’s session, there is one economic report to watch pre-market: Durable Goods Orders (E: 1.0%) before focus will turn to the Fed events: FOMC Meeting Announcement (2:00 p.m. ET) and the Fed Chair Press Conference (2:30 p.m. ET).

Additionally, some of the most widely followed U.S. corporations will release Q4 earnings today including: BA (-$1.78), and T ($0.73) before the open, and AAPL ($1.41), TSLA ($0.99), FB ($3.24), LVS (-$0.30), RJF ($1.71), and AMP ($4.44) after the close.

Finally, we are seeing a repeat of Monday in the pre-market this morning as massive short squeezes are continuing to play out in the most heavily shorted names in the market (multiple stocks have doubled or more during the overnight session) and that is reverberating across the broader equity markets as the fear of sizeable margin calls is weighing on stock futures.

Despite the Fed meeting and important earnings being in focus today, expect the inverse relationship between names like GME, BBBY, DDS, and AMC, vs. the S&P 500 to continue as long-short equity funds are potentially forced to liquidate long positions over the course of the session.