Stock futures dropped. The three major averages just finished a losing week. Investors are weighing AI safety concerns. They're also weighing oil gains. They're weighing everything. They've become weighers.
The market spent five straight days going down and now futures suggest it might continue going down. This development has shocked no one except the guy who bought calls at Friday's close because a TikTok told him the bottom was in.
AI safety concerns are being weighed. Not addressed. Not solved. Weighed. Someone somewhere decided artificial intelligence might be dangerous and the market responded by pricing in exactly nothing because no one knows what AI safety means or costs or does to Q4 earnings. But it sounds important so we're weighing it.
Oil gained. This is bad for stocks somehow. Or good. Depends who you ask and when you ask them. Energy costs go up, margins compress, consumers suffer, recession fears spike, or maybe inflation stays hot and the Fed stays tight, or maybe oil goes up because growth is strong and demand is surging which means stocks should go up too except they're not because we're weighing things.
The retail trader who bought at the high last Tuesday is currently weighing his options. His options are worth zero but he's weighing them anyway. He's refreshing his portfolio every eleven seconds. He's reading articles about stock futures to understand why his life savings are disappearing. He thinks weighing means something is about to happen.
Nothing is about to happen.
Futures fall, futures rise, averages go red, averages go green. The news calls it AI safety concerns on Monday and profit-taking on Tuesday and technical selling on Wednesday. It's all the same. Numbers move because other numbers moved because someone needed liquidity at 9:34 AM.
The three major averages will have another week. Might be winning. Might be losing. Investors will weigh it either way.
Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash
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