Stock futures edged higher Sunday night despite renewed U.S.-Iran attacks pushing oil prices up. Edged. That's the word they went with. Markets moved less than half a percent and CNBC deployed "edged" like it means something.
The attacks happened. Oil went up. Futures barely moved. Asia traded mixed, which is journalist code for "some numbers were red and some were green and we have no f*cking idea why."
Wall Street just finished a mixed week. Rotation out of tech. Rotation into other parts of the market. Retail traders spent the week staring at their Nvidia shares wondering why Jerome Powell personally hates them.
Here's what actually happened: geopolitical tension spiked oil. Futures traders adjusted positions by microscopic amounts. Asia opened because that's what Asia does on Monday mornings. None of this information helps you.
Tech got sold. Other stocks got bought. Financial media called this rotation, as if pension funds suddenly woke up and decided semiconductors are overvalued. They didn't wake up. Algorithms rebalanced. You read about it three days later and thought it was actionable intelligence.
The U.S. and Iran exchanged attacks. Oil spiked. Every day trader with a TradingView subscription now thinks they understand Middle Eastern geopolitics because they can draw a trendline on crude futures.
Stock futures edged higher anyway. Because futures don't care about missiles unless those missiles hit a data center or a Treasury building. They hit neither. Oil went up. Chevron probably moved. You still lost money on options.
Asia traded mixed because Asia always trades mixed when Americans write the headline before Tokyo closes. Mixed means nothing. It's financial journalism's participation trophy.
The attacks pushed oil up, futures edged higher, and tomorrow morning you'll check your portfolio and somehow still be down for the month.
Photo by on Unsplash
Leave a Comment