Stock market futures are trading a bit soft today as investors are hesitating to bet big ahead of some big earnings today. Basically, today is an action packed day when it comes to earnings, and companies like Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon, and PNC Financial will be closely watched by investors and traders. So far, the banks that have reported earnings, have posted strong numbers as the higher interest rate environment has added more gains to their top line numbers.
Stock Futures Now
Having said this, traders and investors continue to trade very carefully as all the S&P 500 sectors closed in negative territory yesterday, but if you zoom out and look at the YTD performance of the index, it continues to unpack some stellar numbers. We are confident that as the odds of a soft landing continue to add up, there are greater chances that the US stock market is likely to perform well in the second half of this year as well.
Traders will also be paying close attention to the US retail sales data, which will be released later today. The number is of high importance, as it will tell us the real conditions of US consumers and their ability to dig deep in their pockets. Due to the fact that recent inflation numbers have shown massive improvement, the odds are that we may actually see more improvement in consumer spending as the job market and wage earnings growth both remain stable to robust.
Gold Prices Today
Gold, the shining metal, is in a sweet spot when it comes to price action. The reason that we say this is because we continue to see fewer traders who are pessimistic about the future. The fact that the US inflation numbers have shown decent improvement, although it can be argued that inflation data may move once again in the wrong direction before finally moving lower again, many traders believe that the bad days are gone for the shinning metal.
Gold Price Chart
The fact that gold prices held well when inflation was sky high and the Fed continued to hike interest rates at a record pace shows that gold is poised to move higher, and it is only a matter of time before we begin to see the price moving above the $2000 mark. Today’s US retail sales data is unlikely to bring any significant downward moves in the shining metal’s price, and this is because usually a good economic number gives the Fed more firepower to hike interest rates to tame inflation. But the fact that the inflation reading isn’t that far from the Fed’s own target is a matter of less concern now.
Bitcoin Prices
Bitcoin has plenty of tailwinds working for it, and we strongly believe that good days are ahead. The bitcoin rally in real terms hasn’t even started yet, and for the time being, the momentum is only building up. The news flow is so positive that now we have research papers from MIT showing more positive and favourable aspects of the energy influence that digital gold has. And when it comes to institutional investors, we have a clear pattern here, and the pattern is that smart money is buying stocks of the companies that are involved in bitcoin mining, and their clients are ready to pounce once the Bitcoin spot ETF becomes available.
Bitcoin Price Chart
Among all this optimism, we think that it is highly likely that bitcoin could easily hit its all time high well before the end of this year, and in the month of December, we could see some really interesting moves that could move the price well above the 100K price mark. When it comes to regulation, it appears that the SEC has nothing else to look at currently, which disappoints as the SEC’s chief continues to say that he is disappointed with the court’s decision about XRP.
