The Week Ahead - CPI, Oracle, and The Largest IPO Ever (Report Link in Comments and Website)
A week that printed fresh record highs midweek reversed hard as chips cracked, Seoul tripped a circuit breaker, and Treasuries sold off. With payrolls running hot and inflation drifting away from target, does next week's CPI force the higher-for-longer trade back to center stage — right as the largest IPO in history hits the tape? $ORCL $SPCX $SOXX
May payrolls came in at 172K against an ~80K consensus — more than double expectations, with several firms flagging World Cup-related hiring (the tournament opens June 11).
A blowout jobs number in a higher-for-longer regime is a tightening, not a tailwind, and it reignited the rate-cut-versus-rate-hike debate hours before the weekend. My lean is that this is short lived from a labor perspective due to world cup seasonality and much of the damage caused in the market was more driven by stretched technicals.
This week's dip looks like a buying opportunity. S&P 500 is 3% below its high, while Nasdaq 100 is over 5%.
Remember, June has never marked the annual peak for $SPX, and $NDX has peaked in June only once.
Every pullback in $SPY and $QQQ this month may be a gift for dip buyers.
When someone answers "What do you think triggered the big stock market selloff Friday?"
They will come up with a large list of narratives, none of which mention positioning: People were choking on calls on Thursday, and purging all those calls on Friday.
ex: $SMH (pink) went from top right on this chart on Thursday (calls priced higher than puts in the +90% %'ile), to puts and calls being equally valued (i.e. center of chart).
Then look at how expensive QQQ options were INTO the Friday vs SPY (Y axis). Tech heavy Qs were massively overvalued related to SPY as everyone over-FOMO'd tech.
Positioning needed a reset.