5 Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day: Americas

Good morning. Nvidia is carrying the fortunes of markets before its earnings on Wednesday, and a mystery fall in the Turkish lira has invest [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. Nvidia is carrying the fortunes of markets before its earnings on Wednesday, and a mystery fall in the Turkish lira has investors scratching their heads. Here’s what traders are talking about. — [David Goodman]( Want to receive this newsletter in Spanish? [Sign up to get the Five Things: Spanish Edition newsletter](. Waiting for Nvidia The fortunes of a single company are [keeping traders are on tenterhooks]( today, as markets drift waiting for results from Nvidia — perhaps the world’s most influential stock. Any disappointment will be sure to roil markets, given Nvidia’s heft in US indexes. As the clock ticks down to the release, moves were muted on Wednesday — European stocks rose, while US stock-index futures were little changed and bonds were also flat. Lofty expectations But the bar looks pretty high for the $3.2 trillion chipmaker’s results, which are due after the US close. Analysts, on average, predict Nvidia will project revenue growth of more than 70% for the current quarter. Investors are gearing up for [big swings in the company’s shares,]( with the options market implying a move of almost 10% in either direction on the day following the results. The stock has rallied about 160% this year and 1,000% from its October 2022 bear-market low. Commodities slide Away from stocks, global commodities took a hit on Wednesday as oil and metals both headed lower. [Gold]( a three-day rally, while [crude]( dropped for a second day. Aluminum, copper and zinc retreated amid rising Chinese inventories, suggesting pressure on demand. The moves hurt shares of miners, with Anglo American, Rio Tinto and Glencore all sliding. Buffett sale Warren Buffett has sold an additional [$982 million of Bank of America stock]( as he continues whittling down a highly profitable bet in the second-largest US bank. Berkshire Hathaway has trimmed the stake by a total of almost 13% in a series of sales since mid-July, generating $5.4 billion in proceeds. Berkshire disclosed the latest disposals in a regulatory filing late Tuesday. Buffett has as held silent about his reasoning for selling, and his company still remains the bank’s biggest stockholder. Mystery fall Finally, a [brief and sudden plunge]( in Turkey’s lira during early trading left traders scratching their heads and rushing to cut losses, before the currency settled on a more predictable path. The lira weakened as much 1.4% to a record low against the dollar, according to Bloomberg indicative pricing, before reverting back to trade little changed. What we’ve been reading This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - China’s two richest people lose billions in [consumer stock rout](. - [GSK shares rise]( court decision on Zantac evidence reviewed. - AI threatens jobs in [world’s call center capital.]( - UK homes for sale [hit seven-year high]( as market recovers. - [Apple cuts jobs]( in online services group as priorities shift. And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning By and large, I think, you should always be a little bit skeptical of most public opinion surveys. They're hard and expensive to collect, and of course they're riven with biases and idiosyncracies. All you have to do is look at how Democrats and Republicans change their views on the state of the economy based on whoever happens to be in the White House right now. That being said, one of the measures I do think is high-signal is the Conference Board's Labor Differential Index. It basically measures the gap between respondents who says jobs are plentiful versus those who say jobs are scarce. And so as long as the number is positive, that means generally good stuff. Anyway, we got the latest update Tuesday and while it's still in positive territory, the direction of travel is clear. One reason I put stock in this chart is that it historically aligns very nicely with another chart I've posted before which has the same line but also overlaid with the Quits Rate (from the JOLTS) report. When jobs are plentiful, people are more likely to quit their jobs. When they're scarce, they keep their jobs. You don't need to perform any special statistical analysis to see the relationship. [On Monday here in the newsletter]( I wrote about the notional "employment expectations" channel. The idea here is that if you want to have a robust and tight job market, then companies and workers should expect a robust and tight job market. If the unemployment rate is expected to stay low, then companies may be slower to shed workers out of fear that they won't be able to hire them back when demand picks up. Expectations of low unemployment should (all things equal) encourage workers to spend freely, with less fear of needing money stashed away for a rainy day. Anyway, assuming there's some validity to thinking this way (which you may disagree with), Tuesday's Conference Board data, showing worsening perceptions of the job market, offer further evidence that employment expectations are continuing to drift un-anchored in the wrong direction. Joe Weisenthal is the co-host of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast. Follow him on X [@TheStalwart]( Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. [Bloomberg Markets Wrap: The latest on what's moving global markets. Tap to read.]( Follow Us Stay updated by saving our new email address Our email address is changing, which means you’ll be receiving this newsletter from noreply@news.bloomberg.com. 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