Futures were higher ahead of this morning’s economic data, helped by blowout Micron earnings after the close and reports that OpenAI is in discussions for a big funding round. That seemed to ease some of the AI-related concerns that have become more prevalent.

Futures took another leg higher after this morning’s CPI report came in much “better than expected”. If you thought Tuesday’s jobs report was sloppy it looked pristine in comparison to the today’s inflation data. On an annual basis headline CPI was up 2.7% while core came in at 2.6% both were down from 3% in September. The S&P 500 gapped just above the 50d ma at the open, traded back up to yesterday’s high just over 6,800 before pulling back to opening levels over the last half hour. Some of the volatility is likely related to tomorrow’s expiation.

Tech is outperforming making up some of the lost ground. Energy continues to struggle down nearly 1%. Consumer discretionary is the best performing sector with the mega-cap tech components doing much of the heavy lifting though there are also gains in apparel. Initial jobless claims held steady ~224k while continuing claims increased from last week but were better than expected just under 1.9ml. The claims data seems to have worked through the Thanksgiving distortions from a couple of weeks ago. Treasury yields were down a couple of bps ahead of the data and moved a couple of basis points lower after now down ~4bps.

Commodities are mostly higher improving after the inflation data as the USD moved lower. Metals were mostly lower after the recent surge but have bounced back with the currency weakness. The risk on sentiment helped crypto early but gains have evaporated quickly