The stock market can’t catch a break. Good news is bad news, and now bad news is bad news, too.

Then on Tuesday, the Conference Board reported a decline in consumer confidence to a four-month low. The result: a sharp 1.5% sell-off in the S&P 500.

So how can it be that both good economic news and bad economic news both spell bad results for the stock market?

Well, it suggests that maybe there’s another force driving market direction, namely the surge in bond yields, which may not really be driven by the data at all.

Deutsche Bank posted this chart comparing the ratio of copper to gold to U.S. 10-year Treasury yields. The previous close relationship has totally broken down.

Their take is the rise in long-term yields is due to large fiscal deficits, aggressive central bank quantitative tightening and central banks ruling out rate cuts.

That doesn’t look like it will end well, and the Deutsche Bank team say it won’t, unless the Fed gets more dovish on rates or pursues a far less aggressive quantitative tightening program.

“If our cycle dating is close to correct, central banks are now actively tightening policy into a late 2000 & 2007 style backdrop,” say credit analysts led by Steve Caprio, head of European and U.S. credit strategy.

If there is some good news, at least there’s support for the S&P 500 at its 200-day average, which on Tuesday was 4,195.

The market

U.S. stock futures
ES00,
-0.76%

NQ00,
-0.75%
were a bit stronger as the 10-year yield
BX:TMUBMUSD10Y
fell 6 basis points. Crude-oil futures
CL.1,
+3.45%
traded higher.

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The buzz

Durable-goods orders data came in stronger than forecast, rising by 0.2%, and by 0.9% on the core measure.

Costco Wholesale
COST,
+1.07%
late Tuesday reported better-than-forecast earnings but did not, as some investors hoped, raise its membership fees.

UBS shares
UBS,
-3.71%
dropped after Bloomberg News reported there’s a Justice Department probe into alleged Russian sanctions evasion at the acquired Credit Suisse.

The Senate advanced a bipartisan package to fund the government that appears to have little likelihood of success in the House.

A judge ruled President Donald Trump defrauded his banks and insurers, a decision he plans to appeal.

Best of the web

The big pharma stock trade: Weight loss is in, COVID-19 is out.

Something unusual is happening in copper markets that hasn’t been seen in 30 years.

The clean-up job for Amazon’s Andy Jassy just got a lot bigger after a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit.

Top tickers

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

The chart

Goldman Sachs devotes a research piece to departing commodities research head Jeff Currie, who’s leaving the bank after 27 years. One of the lessons learned from Currie and colleagues, the bank says, is to track the largest oil and gas projects. Right now the lesson learned are that the cost curve has been steepening, while output is shrinking, following project delays, cost inflation and higher taxes.

Random reads

Ride passengers dangled upside down for half an hour.

An artist who submitted blank canvases after being lent $76,000 by a museum, and called it “Take the Money and Run,” was ordered to return the cash.

The optical illusion that its creator says tells if you are indecisive … if you agree. Or not.

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