The Morning Hammer: More of the Same Yawns…

Crude oil is dipping below $46 on the American Petroleum Institute's inventory report, which said US crude stocks rose 942K barrels last week.

Remember, we get EIA data today at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Traders are looking for a 1300K build.

It should be interesting. Two weeks ago, we saw a massive beat, but last week was a huge miss.

We've also got the ADP Employment Change, Chicago PMI, and Pending Home Sales on the calendar, but folks are really waiting for Friday's big jobs report.

SPX futures are flat, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone given the past 2 months of basically no volatility.

The dollar is up as the hawk trade is still raging, though gold is down only fractionally.

The miners got destroyed yesterday and I'm curious to see if there are any dip buyers there.

In deal news, cloud software name Interactive Intelligence (ININ) is being acquired by Genesys for $60.50 a share, or $1.4 billion. ININ had been rumored to be exploring a sale.

Overnight, European markets are mostly positive. EU inflation beat expectations in August, which extends the streak of better-than-expected post-Brexit economic data. German and Italian unemployment, and UK house prices were also solid.

Irish airline Ryanair warned that it may reduce earnings guidance if ticket prices continue to drop.

Looking out today, crude oil is obviously important, but I'm closely watching biotech.

The major indices are holding up well, but IBB has been deteriorating over the past week or so, implying profit taking.

I'd also watch the hot new issues like Acacia (ACIA), Twilio (TWLO), and Line Corp (LN). They're all over the place as a group, but if they start declining in concert, that could be a sign of trouble.

But for now, the bull is holding things together pretty well.

Maybe Friday's jobs report will be a catalyst for volatility, but that feels like wishful thinking after a horribly boring August.