Bloomberg:
- Red Cross Waits for Guarantees as Ukraine Truce Discussed. The Red Cross demanded safety guarantees before it begins inspecting the first 16 trucks from a convoy Russia says is carrying humanitarian aid at the Ukrainian border, as the nations’ top diplomats met to discuss a possible truce. Ukraine agreed to let Russian aid cross into separatist-held territory under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said it still hadn’t received the safety guarantees it needs. In Berlin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov began talks with Germany and France to ease tensions after officials in Kiev said their troops had destroyed part of an armored column from Russia.
- Gaza Negotiators Not Budging Ahead of Midnight Deadline. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators showed little movement from long-held positions ahead of a midnight deadline to extend talks that have kept the Gaza Strip free from military conflict for a week. Egyptian officials are brokering a final day of talks in the five-day cease-fire agreed upon last week by Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza. That truce extended an earlier 72-hour cease-fire.
- China Home Prices Decline in Majority of Cities on Weak Demand. China’s new-home prices fell in July in almost all cities that the government tracks as tight mortgage lending deterred buyers even as local governments eased property curbs. Prices fell in 64 of the 70 cities last month from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data. Beijing prices fell 1 percent from June, posting the first monthly decline since April 2012. Prices in Shanghai decreased 1.2 percent and dropped 1.3 percent in Guangzhou, both the biggest slide since January 2011. The eastern city of Hangzhou and the southern tropical city of Sanya had the largest declines in July, each falling 2.4 percent.
- China Banks’ Share Sales to Damp Profit in Vicious Cycle. China’s biggest banks, already poised for the weakest profit growth in more than a decade, risk a further erosion in earnings from record share sales intended to boost their capital after a credit binge.
- Misery Unseen Since 2008 Besets Australia in Conundrum for RBA. A deepening gloom across the largest developed economy to escape recession during the global financial crisis is shaping up as one of the toughest challenges yet for Reserve Bank of Australia chief Glenn Stevens. Australia’s misery index -- the sum of unemployment and inflation rates -- is at 9.0, the highest since 2008, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. froze credit markets around the world and triggered the deepest recession in the U.S. since the Great Depression.
- London Home Asking Prices Plunge Most in More Than Six Years. London home sellers cut asking prices by the most in more than six years this month, adding to signs that the property market in the U.K. capital is coming off the boil. London values fell 5.9 percent from the previous month to an average 552,783 pounds ($922,300), the biggest drop since December 2007, property website Rightmove Plc said today. Nationally, prices declined 2.9 percent, a record for an August.
- Asian Stocks Fluctuate After Five-Day Winning Streak. Asian stocks fluctuated, after a five-day winning streak, as health-care shares gained while banks slid with consumer companies. Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. (4519) soared 15 percent as people familiar with the matter said Roche Holding AG is in talks to buy the almost 40 percent of the Japanese firm it doesn’t already own. National Australia Bank Ltd. slid 1.4 percent after the nation’s largest lender by assets said it will set aside more than 245 million pounds ($410 million) for compensation related to U.K. insurance and hedging products. Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. dropped 0.4 percent in Singapore after Southeast Asia’s second-biggest bank by assets said it plans to raise S$3.37 billion ($2.7 billion) selling shares. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) slipped less than 0.1 percent to 147.96 as of 10:31 a.m. in Tokyo, with seven of its 10 industry groups rising.
- Hedge Funds Extend Longest Soy Bear Run Since 2006: Commodities. Hedge funds extended the longest bearish streak for soybeans in eight years as improving crop conditions bolster prospects for a record harvest in the U.S., the world’s largest grower. Money managers have been betting on declines for five straight weeks, the most since October 2006. The U.S. on Aug. 12 raised its outlook for domestic production that was already forecast at an all-time high. The bumper harvest will swell global inventories to the biggest ever.
- Bull Market Waning as Barclays Sees 1% Gain for S&P 500. Five years of profit growth exceeding 17 percent is poised to slow in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, reducing returns as the bull market ages, according to Leuthold Group LLC and Barclays Plc. Equity price gains approaching 25 percent annually will weaken to 3 percent over the next decade as profit expansion reverts to its rate since 1929, said Doug Ramsey, the chief investment officer at Leuthold. Jonathan Glionna of Barclays says overseas markets are generating too little demand to push the S&P 500 up more than 1 percent in the rest of 2014.
Wall Street Journal:
- The Outlook: Federal Reserve Bets It Won't Wait Too Long on Rates. Officials Say Economic Indicators and Financial Markets Aren't Pointing to Overheating.
- Investors Rethink Bets on Europe Shares. Weak Economies, Ukraine Strife Have Hurt Stocks, Spoiling a Popular Wager. Economic headwinds and geopolitical strife have foiled investors betting on a comeback in European stocks, throwing cold water on one of 2014's most highly touted wagers. Many forecasters saw European equities as a likely big winner at the start of the year. Portfolio managers warmed to the continent after shares there lagged behind roaring U.S. stocks last year. Economies across the euro zone looked to be shaking off their financial...
- Senate Democrats vs. the Middle Class. Senators elected in 2008 made Obama's agenda possible, and its results have harmed most Americans.
- Fed should squelch any idea of a’Yellen put,’ former central banker says. The Federal Reserve must guard against the perception that there is a “Yellen put” in place to keep the stock market moving endlessly higher, said Jeremy Stein, a former governor of the central bank. “Markets seem to sense an element of a Fed put, and that complacency can be a source of risk in itself, so you have to push back on that a bit,” Stein said in his first interview, with the New York Times, since leaving the Fed in May and returning to Harvard University’s economics department. Stein said the central bank should stick to its tightening plan, once launched, even if markets gyrate.
Fox News:
- Congressional Dems critical of Obama's efforts on ISIS, say 'mission is lost'. Congressional Democrats were critical Sunday of President Obama’s efforts to stop Islamic militants in the Middle East, suggesting the “mission has been lost” and that U.S. troops might be needed in Iraq.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
Reuters:
- Islamic State 'massacres' 80 Yazidis in north Iraq: officials. Islamic State insurgents "massacred" some 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a village in the country's north, a Yazidi lawmaker and two Kurdish officials said on Friday. "They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon," senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed."
Financial Times:
- Fed blow to banks over ‘living wills’. Global banks can no longer assume continuing access to the Federal Reserve’s discount lending window as an element of their living wills, people familiar with the process have warned.
Financial News:
- China Large-Scale Private Bond Default Unlikely. A large-scale default of bonds in China would cause financial market turbulence, which can't be allowed when the economy faces "relatively heavy" downward pressure, according to a front-page commentary by Xu Shaofeng. Private bonds of 6.2b yuan will mature next quarter, the biggest amount since 2012 when China started allowing bond issues by medium-sized and small cos., the commentary said.
- None of note
- Asian indices are -.25% to +.25% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 103.0 -.5 basis point.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 71.25 -1.25 basis points.
- FTSE-100 futures +.49%.
- S&P 500 futures +.28%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.27%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (JKS)/.76
- (AAP)/-.03
- (URBN)/.49
10:00 am EST
- The NAHB Housing Market Index for August is estimated at 53.0 versus 53.0 in July.
- None of note
- The Eurozone Trade Balance could also impact trading today.
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