Before the open, the Fed's Waller appeared to be on a mission to soothe rate hike fears, and he basically said he was fine with not moving at the upcoming meeting as long as next week's inflation data comes in cooler again. In other words, it's going to be cool, and tomorrow's jobs number doesn't matter at this point. The odds of a rate hike per fed funds fell to 43%.
Predictably, the dollar and yields fell, while the spoos and commodities, including gold and silver, all jumped.
The S&Ps opened up a touch, and after a brief stutter step when the services ISM came in right inline, we launched to new highs for the day. The remainder of the session was spent in a sideways chop, and we would basically go out on the highs of the day in the S&Ps with a gain of over a percent.
The dollar was mostly weaker and not only weakened on Waller's comments but was also sharply weaker vs. the yen even before that on the back of what appeared to be intervention. The DXY fell over half percent.
Yields fell 3 bps in the short end and one bp in the long end, which steepened the curve slightly.
BTC jumped 7 percent to a new high for the move since the low and just shy of breaking out over the May high.
Commodities were higher. Oil popped another percent to just shy of the July high. Platinum jumped 3 percent, and copper rose over a percent.
Gold jumped to as high as $4494 in the wake of Waller's comments, and after a pullback and a surge to as high as $4510, we backed off again to go out off the highs at $4472 for a gain of 2 percent.
Silver similarly popped on Waller's comments to as high as $67.50 before backing off to go out closer to $67 for a gain of over 2 percent.
The GDX gapped up on the open and then pulled back to fill the gap before then surging again to go out on the highs with a gain of 4 percent and just over the 10 dma.
I came into today looking for a further correction in the metals and miners a rooting for bounce to fade, but in light of Waller's comments, I changed my mind, as the path of least resistance now seems to be higher if the Fed is going to punt again on a rate hike in a week and a half.
A strong jobs number won't change the odds of a hike any in my view given the emphasis on the inflation data, which Waller reiterated, while weak data should reinforce that the Fed isn't going to lift a finger.
My gold model remained at neutral.
Positions: Short SPY, QQQ, MDY, and IWM. Long DBA, IBIT, and STRC.
Metals: I reversed my positions and turned long GDXU and AGQ and bought the SLV 62 calls for tomorrow for 17 cents.