Yiwen Lu8/12/24

US stocks go nowhere as market-moving data looms

Just seven days after a panicked sell-off, US stocks had a much calmer start to the week, as investors waited for direction ahead of a series of potential market-moving events.

The S&P 500 was unchanged, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 was up 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 slipped 0.9%.

Investors are expecting this week to shed more light on the health of the economy, which had recently been called into question. The Consumer Price Index for July is slated for release on Wednesday, while retail sales will be announced on Thursday. Any deceleration in consumer spending could enhance fears of about softening demand and the economic outlook.

Additionally, concerns over the Middle East conflict escalated, as officials anticipated a possible Iranian attack on Israel. Geopolitical risk appeared to weigh on investor confidence, with markets giving back early gains following this news.

Major crude oil indexes also gained, with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate rallying 3.7%, briefly topping $80 per barrel. Gold prices also increased by more than 1% on Monday, approaching all-time highs.

The S&P tech sector ETF was the best performer, up 0.8%. Aside from that, only energy and utilities finished in the green.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind social media platform Truth Social, fell 5.1%. Its investors appeared to be nervous after Elon Musk said that he would interview Trump at 8 p.m. Eastern Time tonight on X, as well as seeing the former President posting for the first time on X since August, 2023.

KeyCorp was the best performing S&P 500 stock, up 9.2% on Monday. This followed the announcement that the Bank of Nova Scotia would acquire 14.9% of the U.S. regional bank, valued at $2.8 billion.

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Shareholder returns are going up too!

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All eyes are on tonight’s Q1 2027 earnings from the world’s largest company.

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T1 Energy spikes on record call volumes after Roth analyst calls short report a buying opportunity

Shares of T1 Energy are electric Wednesday afternoon, soaring more than 20% on record call volumes.

The stock had fallen over 13% at its lows on Tuesday after short-only fund Fuzzy Panda Research published a report calling the solar and battery storage company a "China Hustle," rather than a legitimate AI infrastructure investment, also alleging that the company has booked tax credits it won’t receive.

Retail traders have often used the dip that’s followed the announcement of a short report to load up on a company’s shares (see: Poet Technologies in April).

Roth Capital Partners analyst Philip Shen responded to the report by calling T1 "a model for what the Trump administration may want in a domestic manufacturer that is transferring advanced technology and capacity to the US,” suggesting that the selloff was a buying opportunity.

Earlier this week, T1 got an even more prominent vote of confidence when a 13f filing from Situational Awareness showed the hedge fund run by wunderkid Leopold Aschenbrenner held a 3.6% stake in the company at the end of Q1.

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Airlines and cruise stocks surge as oil prices plunge

Travel stocks are surging on Wednesday, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures down 5% as of 12 p.m. ET, largely on commodity traders’ hopes of a resolution to the US war with Iran.

The decline comes despite the US Energy Information Administration reporting a record plunge in US crude inventories last week. As the country expands its oil exports to reduce the impact of the war in Iran, inventories have fallen by 7.9 million barrels, according to the EIA, indicating a significant drop in domestic supply wiggle room ahead of the summer driving season. Per Reuters, analysts had expected a drop of 2.9 million.

Bloomberg noted that US oil exports have been crucial in keeping global petroleum prices in check, as supply remains historically constrained due to the effective closure of the Straight of Hormuz. Typically, such a sharper-than-expected drop in inventories would cause oil futures to rise.

Today, however, that is not the case and oil’s pain is travel stocks’ gain, with US airlines and cruise lines surging higher on Wednesday. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and JetBlue were all up by at least 6%, while Carnival and Norwegian were up about 7%.

Royal Caribbean pared earlier losses from Mexico’s rejection of a large planned water park, but was still down about 1%.

GameStop boosts eBay stake to 6.55% after e-commerce platform rejected its $55.5 billion offer

GameStop has only had to spend around $10 million to gain economic exposure to about 29.1 million shares of eBay.

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