Santoli's Thursday market notes: Low summer volumes leaves action in the hands of smaller players

Published Thu, Aug 12 20211:52 PM EDT

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics. -Market spinning its wheels a bit at the highs, but so far without backsliding. S & P index floating on opposing currents (tech pullback vs. cyclical bounce in recent days, the opposite today) while nearing some upside technical targets, some of which converge between here and 4500. -Low summer volumes means a lack of strong "real money" flows, leaving the daily action largely to the tactical players and dealers hedging options exposures. We're seeing the S & P restrained in its intraday moves, with each close this week within a whisper of where it opened: -This happens in part through constant sector seesaw action. Here's the Nasdaq 100 vs the KBW Bank index intraday: -Again, this interplay can happen when overall market conditions are settled, with no jolts from macro inputs. The relationships can and will change or be overwhelmed at some point by a broader market impulse, but for now this is where we are. -Some slippage in the "back to cyclicals" trade that has held since before the jobs report and that most every strategist and buyside voice seems to be endorsing. Asia slowdowns on rising caseloads and some softening of US credit-card spending indicators in the air. Not a major shift, just noise. -Semis backing off and now the group's recent upside breakout being challenged. Downgrades, supply coming back, Asia operational concerns draining some enthusiasm. -PPI data definitely hot and while not a huge market catalyst is going to keep investors sensitive to profit-margin resilience and pricing power. The market has already been rewarding companies that qualify on these fronts and punishing those (such as in food/household goods and restaurants) that don't. Still more months to go before we get a true fix on the inflation trajectory and therefore Fed outlook. - Disney shares have come way off the boil but are stable, the pandemic excitement over Disney+ receded, enthusiasm for parks reopening leverage perhaps priced in and the stock still carrying a premium valuation. Fun that for all the Covid/streaming hoopla, the stock over the past year has tracked well with another media mega-cap that lacks a Magic Kingdom or comic-book-character multiverse. -Market breadth soft today again, been pretty ragged under the surface. This can go on along time even if eventually it does lead to more obvious market weakness. It's helping to keep investor sentiment pretty muted/defensive, which is a plus. - VIX weighed down by the minimal intraday moves and late-summer sluggishness. Now in the 15s, probably should be, though starting to hear more traders point out that it's making protection against any late- August market turbulence appear fairly cheap. Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics.