Need to Know: Here’s the incredibly strong signal for stocks that is coming from the corporate bond market

But our call of the day studies the link between the corporate bond and stock markets. Spreads in both investment grade and riskier high-yield bonds have narrowed rapidly over the last three weeks.

Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group studied the history of such spread compression, though it isn’t a long series since the popular credit-default swap indexes were only invented this century.

The signal is incredibly strong on the junk-bond side. In the nine previous times when the CDX HY spreads fell at least 75 basis points in three weeks, the S&P 500 rose over the next week, six months, and year, with 22% average returns over the next year. “It’s awfully hard to come up with a market signal that looks much better than that long-term,” said the Bespoke analysts.

On investment-grade bonds, it is less strong but still positive. When the CDX IG spread has fallen at least 15 basis points over three weeks, and that has happened 14 times since 2005, the S&P 500 rose in a year’s time in 12 of those occasions, with an average gain of 13%.

A word of warning, however. At current pricing, junk bonds
JNK,
+0.37%
aren’t pricing in a recession, according to BCA Research. The index is pricing in a default rate of 6.65%. “Given that default rates typically surpass 8% during recessions, there is scope for spreads to widen further if recessionary risks intensify,” said the BCA analysts.

The buzz

Tesla
TSLA,
+6.31%
reported earnings above expectations and managed to be cash flow positive for the quarter by selling 75% of its bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-2.53%
holdings, at a loss. The electric-vehicle maker also said it plans to begin long-delayed Cybertruck shipments in the middle of next year. Ford
F,
+0.31%,
meanwhile, is going to cut thousands of jobs to refocus on EVs, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News reported.

Aluminum producer Alcoa
AA,
+1.51%
and casino operator Las Vegas Sands.
LVS,
+6.91%
rallied after stronger-than-forecast results. United Airlines
UAL,
-6.91%
missed on earnings and reduced its capacity plans for next year. Cruise operator Carnival
CCL,
-12.13%
plunged 12% after selling $1 billion in stock.

Amazon
AMZN,
-0.02%
said it’s making a $3.9 billion acquisition of 1Life Healthcare
ONEM,
+69.11%,
the owner of primary-care provider One Medical.

The European Central Bank made its first rate hike in a decade with a half-point increase, somewhat surprising the market, as it also approved what it’s calling the Transmission Protection Instrument, to limit bond yields spreads in the eurozone. 

U.S. jobless claims rose 7,000 to 251,000, as the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index moved deeper into negative territory with a -12.3 reading.

Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned, throwing the eurozone’s third-largest economy into political turmoil and sending Italian bond yields higher.

Russia’s Gazprom resumed sending gas to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline at the same 40% rate it did before the planned maintenance period. Russia also said it is planning annexation votes in Ukraine regions by Sept. 15. Ukraine devalued its currency, the hryvnia, by 25% against the U.S. dollar.

The market

U.S. stock futures
ES00,

NQ00,
-0.14%
were pointing to a muted start. Crude-oil futures
CL.1,
-2.83%
tumbled, losing about $4 per barrel. The yield on the 10-year Treasury
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.975%
declined after the latest U.S. economic data.

Top tickers

Here were the most active stock-market tickers as of 6 a.m. Eastern.

Random reads

General Motors
GM,
-0.06%
wants to test a self-driving car without a steering wheel or pedals.

A possible Fabergé egg was recovered on a seized Russian oligarch’s yacht.

This bride had to hitchhike to her own wedding.

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