A Point And A Half Of Daylight Between Two Indices, And The Fed Did Not Do It

Stock Market Edge

The market that could not be transmitted to, transmitted beautifully One weekend, one sector, and eight times the damage in the other contract

Premarket snapshot:

S&P 500 futures sit at 7,605.75 at 07:26 ET, off 0.72% and underneath the prior all-time-high shelf at 7,648.75. Nasdaq 100 futures trade 28,891.50, off 1.69%. Dow futures have moved 117 points. Russell futures are off 0.42%, and the volatility index reads 17.83.

Sector rotation:

Asia ran the same split with less politeness. The Kospi closed off 3.26%, the Nikkei off 0.81%, the CSI 300 off 0.67%. Europe is off 0.3% whilst the FTSE 100 trades higher because it is full of oil majors.

Earnings or guidance:

Nothing lands today, which is merciful. Adobe filed on 10 September with record revenue of $6.76bn, adjusted earnings of $6.13 against roughly $6.09 expected, guidance raised and one billion monthly users crossed. The shares fell about 2%. Beating by one per cent is now a disappointment.

Cross-asset nuance:

Crude adds 3.55% to 103.54 after printing 103.80, Brent nears 108, European gas adds 3.8%. The ten-year trades close to 4.99%, its highest since November 2023, after a Treasury close of 4.96%. Gold gives back 0.88%. The dollar index has managed 0.01% in two sessions, through a hot core print and seventeen points of hike odds.

📊 There’s a level on SPX I’m watching closely this morning. My full analysis briefing has it – plus what happens if we hold it, and what happens if we don’t. [Read it here →]

Crypto Market Edge

Bitcoin takes the morning off from being a tech stock Ether funds took $216m, bitcoin funds took $13m out, and the price went up anyway

Price snapshot:

Bitcoin trades 77,696.67 after holding 76,347 overnight, on the one morning equity futures decided to fall. Ether closed Friday at 2,538.99, up 2.8%. XRP sat at 1.36 and solana at 102.04. Total capitalisation reached roughly $2.74tn on volume near $108bn.

Flows and positioning:

Spot ether funds took $216.41m on Friday, their best day this month, led by BlackRock. Spot bitcoin funds lost $13.29m, the smallest September outflow, with BlackRock supplying $19.23m of it and two issuers offsetting the rest. Thursday’s bitcoin number was a $282.56m withdrawal, the worst since July.

Leadership and rotation:

Dominance held at 56.7% for bitcoin against 11.2% for ether. Solana funds lost $278,840 and extended an outflow run that started on 4 September. XRP funds recorded precisely nothing for a second session this month, which is at least decisive. Ether led on flows without leading on price, and bitcoin led on price without leading on anything else.

Catalysts and roadmap:

Tomorrow the revised CLARITY Act meets a Senate procedural vote, and 630 pages get their first real count. Wednesday brings the FOMC and a fresh projection set, with the Bank of England and Bank of Japan queued behind it. Three central banks and one bill inside four sessions.

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TL;DR – The Bottom Line

• A point and a half separates Dow futures from Nasdaq futures. The gap opened at Sunday’s reopen and has widened every hour since.
• The AI trade’s own architects asked for a slowdown over the weekend and two rivals agreed. Semiconductor indices now sit near 20% off June.
• Saudi Arabia shut the 745 mile line that bypassed a strait blocked since February. Crude adds 3.55% to 103.54, Brent nears 108.
• Core CPI missed by one tenth. Relayed hike pricing jumped to between 85% and 90%, and the dollar index responded with 0.01%.
• No US data before Wednesday’s projection set. The tape trades the weekend it was handed, and tomorrow a 630 page bill gets counted.

📌 Fun Fact

The fear gauge’s very first print looked a lot like this morning Thirty-six years on, it sits six tenths of a point from where it started

The volatility index arrived in 1993 and was back-calculated to January 1990. The oldest value in the official daily series, dated 2 January 1990, reads 17.24. It trades 17.83 this morning. Three and a half decades of innovation, and the fear gauge has travelled six tenths of a point.