Good morning contrarians! Stock futures are pointing to gains ahead of a pretty big data dump at 0830.

We get producer prices and retail sales at that hour, along with weekly unemployment claims. This is topical because asset managers as big as BlackRock’s Rick Rieder are on the record saying an economic slowdown has already begun, citing “tangible slack in the labor market.”

The weekly unemployment claims certainly don’t reflect that, or at least not yet. Consider this your friendly reminder that nobody knows exactly what is going to happen, much less when. All one can do is watch the data. If there is tangible slack in the labor market, it should show up in the weekly jobless claims pretty soon.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on retail sales. If these drop into negative territory, even on a monthly basis, there could be trouble.

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