I promise/Sentiment/No sushi please/Pound at 1 yr high/Gold

I'll say again, I promise that about 75% of companies reporting earnings will beat the estimate. The revenue side? I'm not as confident this quarter. 

With the S&P 500 and NASDAQ continuing its relentless move higher (we have to now specify which 'stock market' we're talking about), let's look at sentiment again. The updated Investors Intelligence survey still has a very wide spread between Bulls and Bears, above the extreme level of 40, but a bit less so this week. Bulls fell a touch to 62.7 from 63.1 while Bears rose 1 pt to 17.9. The AAII survey of individual investors saw a big jump in bullishness with Bulls rising by 7.5 pts to 49.2, the highest since late March. Bears fell by 4.4 pts w/o/w to just 21.7 and that is the lowest since late February. The CNN Fear/Greed index has finally shifted into the 'Greed' side at 58 vs 44 last week but nothing extreme here as this is not just looking at the big cap tech stocks. 

Bottom line, the bulls have been right on the names we all know but the bears have been right on most everything else. 

After a dramatic move higher over the past 11 weeks, container prices were flattish for the week ended 8/11. The Shanghai to Rotterdam trip saw the price dip by $8 w/o/w to $8,048. As a reminder, it started the year just under $1,700 and was about $2,000 in February 2020. The Shanghai to LA route saw a $40 price increase w/o/w to $7,512. 

Bottom line, someone in the manufacturing/retail/consumer space is going to have to eat this sharp price rise and it will depend who has the leverage to pass it on to their customer.

With respect to the consumer, a company you likely never heard of, Kura Sushi, one of the largest chain sushi restaurants in the US with about 65 in 17 states and DC saw its stock drop 16% yesterday. In their earnings call they said this: