a tie can feel like a loss if you were in line for a victory conversely the draw can be celebrated if you were facing defeat after a number of sessions when early gains evaporated traders will be relieved that thursday saw an initial sharp decline cancelled and the sp 500 spx end mildly in positive territory on such reversals are sustainable rallies potentially made though there’s still a long way to go with the index down 173 for the year silver bugs are having an even tougher time the grey metal si00 this week dropped below 18 an ounce for the first time since june 2020 having traded near 27 as recently as march the ishares silver trust slv has lost nearly 23 for the year and global x silver miners etf sil for example has shed 38 so far in 2022 so what should investors do now if they are considering making a bet on the infamously volatile sector “don’t pay attention to gold pay attention to copper hg00 ” ole hansen head of commodity strategy at saxo bank told marketwatch in a phone interview the reason for this is that unlike its precious metal peer gold silver has extensive industrial uses with up to 50 of supply used in areas like electronics and solar products fear of a global economic slowdown is thus hurting silver in addition to pressures from higher borrowing costs and a surging dollar that traditionally batter bullion hansen notes so while gold is off about 6 this year silver’s decline of 23 is similar to the 21 drop for copper widely accepted as the industrial metal benchmark “silver has not only been challenged by the weakness mentioned in gold but also and more importantly by china economic weakness related selling across industrial metals especially copper” says hansen however he spies signs that the market may be oversold “the rout in silver and copper as well as zinc and aluminum two metals that recently found support from smelters reducing capacity due to high energy costs has by now reached the capitulation stage with silver having entered a previous consolidation range between 1650 and 1850” should signs emerge that inflation concerns are fading causing the dollar to pull back and reducing fears that higher interest rates will curb growth then the futures market may quickly find itself wrongfooted “speculators already hold net short positions in both metals and it would require a change in the technical andor fundamental outlook to turn those short positions into a tailwind through short covering” says hansen should such a trend occur it would help silver recover some poise relative to its bullion peer “the goldsilver ratio last at 96 ounces of silver per ounce of gold has retraced more than 50 of the 2020 to 2021 collapse from 127 to 62 with the next level of resistance around 1025 a potential further 6 underperformance relative to gold while a break back below 94 would be the first signal of strength starting to come back” says hansen sp 500 futures es00 were little changed at 3968 ahead of the jobs data the benchmark 10year treasury yield bxtmubmusd10y was up less than 1 basis point at 3266 bitcoin was up 02 at 20119 us natural gas futures ng00 fell 2 to 9073 per million british thermal units as european gas prices also weakened it’s jobs friday again and it certainly feels like wall street would rather see a soft nonfarm payrolls report than a strong one that way the fed may decide to be a bit more gentle in raising borrowing costs is the reasoning economists forecast a net 318000 positions were added in august down from july’s 528000 and that average hourly earnings rose 04 compared to the previous month’s 05 traders are also keeping a wary eye on the dollar dxy which has surged to a 20year high as the fed became more hawkish and fears build about prospects for the european economy amid the regions’ energy crisis the euro eurusd is below buck parity and it takes more than 140 japanese yen usdjpy to buy one greenback russia said it would stop selling oil to countries seeking to impose a price cap on crude brent brn00 the global benchmark which on thursday fell to a six month low near 93 a barrel is up 22 to 8850 popular fund manager cathie wood has bought more nvidia nvda taking advantage of the chipmaker’s latest slide to a fresh 52week trough she had trimmed her holding last month ahead of nvidia’s results lululemon shares lulu jumped nearly 10 after the clothing retailer delivered wellreceived results and gave upbeat forecasts bond markets have entered their first bear market in at least 30 years best of the web how dan white turned the ufc into a 4 billion titan dan niles is bearish and ready to dump apple michael burry of ‘the big short’ fame sees ‘mother of all crashes’ during the great financial crisis and the covid19 meltdown the fed was keen to be seen supporting markets because it believes in the wealth effect simply put this is the idea that when households feel richer because of rising asset values such as stock or house prices they will spend more and support the economy the problem is this means in order to slow the economy and curb inflation the fed believes it must stop and even reverse the wealth effect the chart below from nomura shows how us financial conditions have indeed experienced some “impulse tightening” again as both stocks and bonds have fallen unfortunately for bulls the fed will want to see this sustained for some time here were the most active stockmarket tickers on marketwatch as of 6 am eastern need to know starts early and is updated until the opening bell but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box the emailed version will be sent out at about 730 am eastern