Wednesday Morning Rebel Brief: JOLTS. FOMC Minutes. Oil. Amazon x Grubhub.

Good morning Rebels! Stocks are trading mostly flat this morning ahead of a data-heavy day (and a data heavy month, for that matter!) At 10AM this morning the JOLTS Report will be released, with expectations set on 11 million job openings. 

A number that is much higher than expected would traditionally be bad news, and would indicate a miss on consensus. However, a miss here indicating that there are more jobs than can be filled might lead the market to believe that the Fed will slow down the pace of its rate hikes, since softening of the labor market has been a recent Fed talking point. 

Later in the day, we’ll receive another key piece of data:

FOMC Minutes To Be Released At 2PM

Are any surprises in store?

FOMC minutes (detailed information regarding the views of various Fed officials held at the prior meeting) will be released at 2PM today. This data can sometimes can rattle the markets. However, lately Fed Governors have been very consistent and very public that they’re willing to continue to raise rates, so this may not carry any big surprises. 

Commodities Continue To Fall

After a big run, are commodities done? 

Inflation has pushed the price of commodities like precious metals, agricultural staples and energy significantly higher, due in part to tight supply chains and the conflict in Ukraine. But this month, the price of those commodities continue to fall. 

How far have commodities fallen this month?

• Gold down >4%
• Copper down >20%
• Nickel down >20%
• Wheat down >20%
• Corn down >15%
• Crude oil down >15%

With inflation in full view of the Fed and an important CPI Report on July 13th, will this result in softer-than-expected June inflation numbers? And will a soft CPI Report lead to a dovish Fed?

Split Opinions On Oil Prices: Citi VS JPMorgan

A tail of two barrels.

Back to back releases of oil price targets show two very different opinions from investment banks Citi and JPMorgan. 

Both stories sourced from Economic Times

Citi sees demand weakening on the back of a recession. JPMorgan sees a recession-free future with high demand for energy & travel, and a price hike on the back of Russian production cuts (a kamikaze move that would hurt both Russia’s own economy and the economies of those countries that rely on its energy).

Amazon Inks Deal With Grubhub

Amazon takes another stake in a growth company

AMZN has partnered up with restaurant meal delivery service Grubhub this morning. Amazon will offer Grubhub membership as part of Prime and has taken a 2% stake in the company, which they believe could grow 15% according to the Wall Street Journal. Similar in nature to Amazon’s past stake in Rivian (taking a stake in a high-growth, long duration equity), this deal has a key difference: 

Rivian’s stake was at IPO, near the height of the bull market. Comparatively, stock in Grubhub (formerly ticker symbol GRUB) fell far from its all-time-highs that the stock actually delisted from the Nasdaq! Time will tell if Amazon has found the bottom in this beaten-down growth stock or not, but so far the stock market has yet to react. 

Notably, Market Rebellion Co-Founder Jon Najarian was on CNBC’s Halftime Report Tuesday morning talking about big bullish buying in Amazon call options expiring this week. Could this have been related?

Quick Crypto News

Bitcoin

The number of addresses holding at least one Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high of 878,357. 

Vauld

Crypto lender Vauld has paused all withdrawals, trading and deposits on its platform as of Monday. Vauld is currently exploring potential restructuring options, however a pause in withdrawals, deposits, and trading has thus far been an ominous sign for previous platforms.

Dystopian Story Of The Day

“ALL NEW VEHICLES IN EUROPEAN UNION WILL HAVE SURVEILLANCE BLACK BOXES

Beginning today, all new vehicles sold in the EU will have mandatory black boxes fitted that record technical data and will be accessible by authorities, greasing the skids for surveillance-powered speed limiting technology.”

Read the rest of this story on Zerohedge 

For more quick takes on this morning’s market-moving news, check out 60 Seconds With Jon Najarian!

https://twitter.com/jonnajarian/status/1544669261280559104

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