* U.S. equity indexes modestly green
* Cons disc biggest gainer among S&P sectors; energy down most
* Euro STOXX 600 index last ~flat
* Dollar ~flat; gold, bitcoin slip; crude slides ~6%
* U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield falls to ~2.91%
July 12 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com
GLOOMY GUS ALERT: SMALL BUSINESS SENTIMENT TANKS TO 9.5 YEAR LOW (0950 EDT/1350 GMT)
Small business owners in the United States seem unable to snap out of their funk, sinking in June to their gloomiest mood since January 2013.
The National Federation of Independent Business' (NFIB) Business Optimism index shed 3.6 points to 89.5, its sixth consecutive drop.
The share of respondents who see business conditions improving over the next six months plunged to a net negative 61%, the dreariest reading in the index's history.
Inflation is once again the dastardly culprit, identified by
more than a third of the survey's participants as their single biggest problem, surging to its highest level since late 1980, when Queen was charting with "Another One Bites the Dust," and folks were lining up to see "9 to 5."
"As inflation continues to dominate business decisions, small business owners' expectations for better business conditions have reached a new low," writes Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB's chief economist.
That explains why 69% of the respondents reported passing the pain along to their customers by jacking up their selling prices.
"Lingering price stickiness will persist through year end as the economy continues to recover from successive supply shocks and strong but moderating demand," writes Mahir Rasheed, U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
The tight labor market continues to be an irritant, with half reporting job openings they are unable to fill, with 48% saying they hiked wages in June and 19% expecting to hire in the next three months.
It should be noted that the NFIB is a politically active membership organization, its Political Action Committee $(PAC)$ having allocated 97.1% of its contributions in the 2019-2020 election cycle to Republican candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (opensecrets.org).
Wall Street is tentatively higher fresh from the starting gate, with market leading megacaps rebounding from Monday's sell-off.
Chips and consumer discretionary were having better days than most.
(Stephen Culp)
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I WIN THE INFLATION FIGHT: NOPE! (0900 EDT/1300 GMT)
Ahead of Wednesday's much anticipated U.S. CPI release
, many commodity indices have been unraveling.
Additionally, since late-March, one Pacer Swan SOS Fund of Funds ETF|ETF that seeks to provide investors with long-term capital appreciation in inflation-adjusted terms by investing up to 80% of its net assets in portfolio holdings expected to benefit, either directly or indirectly, from rising prices, has been dramatically underperforming the S&P 500 .
Indeed, the S&P 500 index put in a secondary high on March 29. Since then, the benchmark index has fallen nearly 17% on a closing basis.
Over this period, the Amplify Inflation Fighter ETF has lost about 24%. Last week, the IWIN/SPX ratio hit fresh lows, dipping just below the Feb. 2 low, set the day the IWIN first traded. Since IWIN's inception date, it's down 16.2% vs a 16% SPX decline.
Meanwhile, since its June 9 closing high, the RefinitivCore Commodity CRB index has lost nearly 13%, and the S&P Goldman Sachs commodity index spot has fallen 17%. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 are only down around 3-4% over this period.
Of note, the SPGSCI is on track to fall for a sixth-straight week, which would be its longest losing streak since a seven-week run of losses from October to December last year.
Looking specifically at Nasdaq relative strength vs TRCCRB
, the IXIC/TRCCRB ratio turned up sharply from its mid-June trough. In fact, over the 12 trading-day period from June 16 to July 6, the IXIC enjoyed its best relative performance vs the TRCCRB since the ratio was peaking in late April 2020:
It now remains to be seen if the mid-June ratio trough serves as a launching pad for an even greater relative recovery in Nasdaq vs commodities, or if the ratio's log-scale support line from 2008 and Y2K top will still act as greater magnets.
(Terence Gabriel)
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FOR TUESDAY'S LIVE MARKETS' POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EDT/1300 GMT - CLICK HERE:
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(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)