Tanker freight rose 5.45 percent to 613.80 dollars, the largest move in the midday tables. Today’s commodities reporting covers the physical squeeze behind it: no very large crude carrier entered the US Gulf to load crude last week for the first time in four years (see today’s supertanker squeeze story), Iran said an LNG tanker struck a mine in the Strait of Hormuz (see today’s Iran LNG tanker story), and the EIA reported builds in crude, gasoline and distillate stocks.
Broadcom fell 5.14 percent to 345.63 dollars, reversing most of Thursday’s 5.54 percent gain. No story in today’s published reporting explains today’s fall; today’s Broadcom and AMD rotation story covers Thursday’s rise, when investors moved into Nvidia rivals after Jensen Huang resigned.
Semiconductors fell 4.45 percent and Nvidia fell 2.88 percent to 161.40 dollars. Nvidia’s fall extends the move that followed Huang’s resignation, verified in the company’s own Form 8-K, with finance chief Colette Kress named interim chief executive (see the Nvidia resignation story and today’s Broadcom and AMD rotation story). No story in today’s reporting gives a separate midday driver for the wider semiconductor index.
Natural gas fell 2.99 percent to 3.24 dollars per mmBtu. No story in today’s published reporting explains today’s fall; today’s energy reporting is about European gas storage at its lowest level for the start of winter in the 2020s and Pakistan relaunching an LNG tender for winter cargoes, neither of which accounts for the US price move.
Copper miners fell 2.56 percent, rare earth miners fell 1.85 percent and uranium miners fell 1.75 percent, while copper itself fell 1.47 percent to 6.09 dollars a pound. That extends the pattern in today’s miner equities story, which found miner shares selling off while their underlying metals held steadier and no single driver for the selloff. China’s copper market points the other way on physical metal: today’s China copper story reports Yangshan import premiums approaching a record 300 dollars a tonne.
Silver futures fell 1.90 percent to 49.03 dollars an ounce. Today’s gold story reported silver up 1.1 percent in Singapore morning trading on dip buying after Thursday’s low; no story in today’s reporting explains the later fall in futures.
Tesla fell 1.86 percent to 390.07 dollars. No story in today’s published reporting explains the move.
Treasury yields held their morning levels at midday: the 5-year at 4.96 percent, up 1.7 basis points on the day, the 10-year at 5.13 percent, up 3.0 basis points, and the 30-year at 5.47 percent, up 3.5 basis points. Today’s Treasury selloff story and the Federal Reserve stories from Williams and Goolsbee, who both said inflation is still too high, remain the reporting behind those levels, and today’s producer price story reported a 0.3 percent rise for October, below the 0.4 percent expected.
The cross-market read at midday is defensive in growth shares and firm in physical and rate markets: semiconductor and large technology shares fell, the Nasdaq 100 fell 1.65 percent and the S and P 500 fell 0.73 percent, while tanker freight rose, yields stayed above 5 percent across the long end, and Brent crude was nearly flat at 95.77 dollars a barrel. Money is leaving chip exposure, not energy or duration risk.