Stock futures fell Sunday. Investors blamed the Iran deal. Also inflation data. Also vibes.
The Iran nuclear deal has exactly zero impact on whether Apple sells more iPhones or Disney raises ticket prices. But some trader in Connecticut read a Reuters alert at 6 PM on a Sunday and decided Tesla should be worth less. Makes perfect sense. The ayatollahs are definitely pricing in forward P/E ratios between enrichment cycles.
The inflation data drops this week. The Federal Reserve will read it. Traders already know what it says because they moved futures down before the number existed. They're weighing information that hasn't been released yet. That's not analysis. That's a Ouija board with a Bloomberg terminal.
Futures moved lower. Not stocks. Futures. Contracts that let you pretend you own stocks before the market opens. It's like getting nervous about a restaurant reservation. The food doesn't exist yet. You're just mad at a phone call.
The headline says investors are weighing the Iran deal progress. Progress toward what? A better deal means less geopolitical risk, which should lift stocks. A worse deal means more risk, which should tank them. But futures fell anyway. So the market hates both good news and bad news about Iran. Flawless logic. Someone get these guys a risk management seminar.
Sunday night futures are where people with real jobs go to lose money before Monday even starts. The big boys are at home. The algorithms are half-asleep. Some guy in his basement sees a headline about Iran and clicks sell on an S&P contract because he thinks it makes him Paul Tudor Jones.
The Fed watches this inflation data closely. Retail traders watch the Fed watching the data. Then they watch futures. Then they watch each other watching futures. Nobody's watching the actual companies. Just a chain of idiots staring at screens, terrified of numbers that describe things that already happened.
Futures recovered by Monday morning, guaranteed, and none of this mattered at all.
Photo by sina drakhshani on Unsplash
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