Bloomberg:
- IMF Cuts Global Outlook. Growth
worldwide will be 2.9 percent this year and 3.6 percent next year, the
IMF said in a report released today in Washington, compared with July
predictions of 3.1 percent for 2013 and 3.8 percent for 2014. It sees
emerging economies growing 4.5 percent this year, 0.5 percentage point
less than three months ago, as projections were reduced for China,
Mexico, India and Russia. “Advanced economies are gradually
strengthening” while “growth in emerging-market economies has slowed,”
IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard wrote in a foreword to the World
Economic Outlook report. “This
confluence is leading to tensions, with emerging-market economies facing
the dual challenges of slowing growth and tighter global financial
conditions."
- German Factory Orders Unexpectedly Fall on Weak Recovery. Orders,
adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, dropped 0.3 percent
from July, when they fell a revised 1.9 percent, the Economy Ministry
said today in an e-mailed statement. Economists forecast an increase of
1.1 percent in August, according to the median of 40 estimates in a
Bloomberg News survey.
- European Stocks Fall. Telecom Italia SpA (TIT) lost 1.8 percent as Standard & Poor’s said it may downgrade the phone company’s debt to non-investment grade. TGS Nopec Geophysical Co. (TGS) tumbled the most in two years after reducing its revenue forecast. Celesio AG jumped to a three-year high on a report that McKesson Corp. may buy the
German drug distributor.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.8 percent to 306.84 at
the close in London.
- Treasury Bill Rates Surge to Highest Since 2008 at 1-Month Sale. Treasury
one-month bill rates surged
the highest since 2008 and yields on three-year notes rose as the U.S.
prepares to sell $30 billion of the debt in the first auction of coupon
securities since the government shutdown. The Treasury sold $30 billion
of one-month bills today at a rate of 0.35 percent, the highest since
2008 and more than double the rate on comparable one-month securities
yesterday. Rates on Treasury
bills due on Oct. 24 climbed to the highest since they were
issued in April, after being negative as recently as Sept. 27.
- Plosser Says Delay in QE Tapering Undermined Fed’s Credibility. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
President Charles Plosser, an opponent of additional stimulus,
said the Fed’s decision last month not to taper its asset
purchases undermined the central bank’s credibility. “To delay tapering of our current asset purchase scheme
without clear and significant departures from prior guidelines
suggested the FOMC was changing the goalposts and deviating from
June’s forward guidance,” Plosser said today in a speech in
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, referring to the policy-setting Federal
Open Market Committee. He doesn’t vote on the panel this year.
“This undermines the credibility of the committee and reduces
the effectiveness of forward guidance as a policy tool.” The Fed’s decision to press on with stimulus “contributes
to additional uncertainty regarding the future course of
monetary policy” and may be interpreted as a sign of decreased
confidence in the economic outlook, Plosser said. “The decision not to begin tapering our asset purchases
was also read in some quarters as a sign that the FOMC had
become much less confident that growth would be sustained in the
manner the Committee envisioned in June,” Plosser said. “Thus,
we undermined our own credibility as well as the public’s
confidence in the economy.” “These were not the messages that I wanted to send,”
Plosser said in his remarks to the Greater Johnstown Cambria
County Chamber of Commerce. “Thus, I disagreed with the
decision not to go forward with a modest reduction in the pace
of our asset purchases.” Fed presidents rotate voting on monetary policy
with Plosser voting next year.
- Fed’s Pianalto Says Fed Should Be ‘Cautious’ in Bond Buying.
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
President Sandra Pianalto, who has supported record Fed stimulus, said
she favored a reduction in bond buying last month because of the
potential costs of the program. “While to date the risks have mostly
remained theoretical, I remain convinced that we need to be cautious in
our expansion of asset purchases,” said Pianalto, who doesn’t vote on monetary policy this year and plans to retire early next year.
“For me the improvement in labor markets seemed substantial
enough to support a scaling back of the asset-purchase program
at last month’s” policy meeting, she said.
Wall Street Journal:
- Parties Diverge in Bid to Break Fiscal Deadlock. House Republicans Urge Budget Talks; Senate Democrats Plan Debt-Limit Vote. The House and Senate headed down separate tracks Tuesday in their
efforts to break the stalemate that has led to a week-old partial
government shutdown. House Republicans, stepping up calls for face-to-face negotiations,
planned to pass legislation that would set a framework for wide-ranging
budget talks. Senate Democrats were planning a vote this week to extend
the country's borrowing authority through 2014, after next year's
midterm elections. The efforts lacked a key component for ending the budget stalemate: endorsement from the other side.
Fox News:
MarketWatch:
- NFIB small-business optimism eases in September. Small-business sentiment edged lower in September on a big drop in the
percentage who expect the economy to improve, the National Federation of
Independent Business said Tuesday. The NFIB small-business optimism
index fell to 93.9 from a corrected 94.1 in August.
CNBC:
- No end in sight for debt addiction: Paul Singer. Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer holds a pessimistic view of
the global financial system, saying he believes the Federal Reserve
easing back on its asset-purchasing program is "off the table" even
though investor confidence could sour quickly.
Zero Hedge:
ValueWalk:
- Dozens of Allegations Against Warren Buffett’s Company. (video) The Scripps National investigative team has uncovered dozens of
allegations that a company that is part of Warren Buffett’s empire
intentionally delays paying insurance money to victims of asbestos and
toxic health hazards.
Business Insider:
Institutional Investor:
Real Clear Politics:
Reuters:
- Obama phones Boehner, repeats he won't negotiate - Boehner aide. President
Barack Obama called Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday about the
government shutdown and a looming deadline to raise the debt ceiling,
and restated his position that he would not negotiate, said a spokesman for
Boehner, the top Republican in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
- Euro zone bonds wilt as U.S. deadlock drags on, Portugal bucks trend. Spanish
and Italian bond yields
rose on Tuesday along with almost all other European sovereigns,
as the U.S. budget stalemate and looming debt deadline continued
to weigh on bond markets worldwide. Plans in both Rome and Madrid to
sell bonds via syndication also put their debt under pressure, halting
the recent relief rally following last week's confidence vote in Italy
for Enrico Letta's government. Italy plans to issue its first ever
seven-year bond on Wednesday, and Spain will also offer investors the
first chance to get 30-year paper since 2009. Spanish 10-year yields
ended up 10 basis
points at 4.31 percent while their Italian equivalents
were 6 bps higher at 4.35 percent.
- Investors take profits in high-flying Nasdaq names. Shares of some of the Nasdaq's
strongest performers this year tumbled on Tuesday as
investors took profits in high-flying names amid growing
uncertainty over the impasse in Washington. Companies in the
technology sector were the hardest hit, with Yahoo Inc, TripAdvisor Inc
and Netflix Inc all among the day's biggest losers, but investor
favorite Tesla Motor Inc also dropped in heavy volume. The Nasdaq
Composite Index was trading down 1.3 percent midday.
Style Underperformer:
Sector Underperformers:
- 1) Biotech -3.82% 2) Internet -2.60% 3) Alt Energy -2.53%
Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
- JMBA, GWPH, SOCL, BITA, ACAD, SSW, INSY, MZOR, CLNE, LCI, RH, NJ, SWIR, CIE, PHH, ANGI, JAZZ, LNKD, CGIX, WWWW, NQ, CLDX, CVRR, FENG, SPLK, DECK, BLOX, NAV, CTXS, PKT, PCLN, GSVC, MAS, CIE, YHOO, RHT, LCI, SSNC, BMRN, FB, AMBA, AFOP, ALNY, ABFS, TRLA, ARIA, YELP, OMER, NOW, NPSP and EXAS
Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
- 1) EWJ 2) IBB 3) PAYX 4) XLV 5) EWW
Stocks With Most Negative News Mentions:
- 1) LNKD 2) TRIP 3) PCLN 4) PBPB 5) ACT
Charts:
Style Outperformer:
Sector Outperformers:
- 1) Utilities +.97% 2) Hospitals +.12% 3) Restaurants -.09%
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
- MCK, TASR, ISRG, MNST and OUTR
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
- 1) ATLS 2) XONE 3) PHH 4) XOMA 5) ACAD
Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:
- 1) NFLX 2) AMZN 3) MSFT 4) A 5) JCP
Charts:
Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Asia’s Crisis of Leadership. The day Asian leaders have long dreaded is here: The era of rapid growth is over. It
has taken five years, but the fallout from what Asians call the “Lehman
shock” is finally hitting gross domestic product and living standards.
These risks are the talk of Bali, where Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation nations are mulling what to do about a world where “risks remain tilted to the downside.”
- Japan Current-Account Surplus Plunges to Record August Low. Japan’s
current-account surplus unexpectedly shrank to a record low for an
August, underscoring drags on the economy as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
tries to drive an exit from 15 years of deflation. The surplus fell 64
percent from a year earlier to 161.5 billion yen ($1.7 billion), as
overseas income dropped for the first time in nine months and imports
exceeded exports, a Ministry of Finance report showed in Tokyo. The
median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 27 economists was for a
520 billion yen surplus.
- Asian Stocks Swing on Utilities, Telecom Services.
Asian stocks swung between gains and losses, with the regional
benchmark index trading near a three-week low, as telecommunication
shares dropped while utilities advanced. Tokyo Electric Power Co.
(9501), the owner of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power
plant, rebounded 5.9 percent after declining 20 percent over the past
five days. Cokal Ltd., a coal mine developer, slumped 22 percent in
Sydney after saying takeover talks with Blumont Group Ltd. were affected
by a record plunge in the buyer’s stock. Blumont soared 62 percent
today in Singapore after sinking 85 percent yesterday. Rakuten Inc.,
which operates a Japanese online mall, fell 12 percent after Yahoo Japan
Corp. said it would eliminate vendor fees for its
shopping and auction sites. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.3 percent to 138.25
as of 12:48 p.m. in Tokyo after falling as much as 0.3 percent.
- Rebar Drops to Lowest in Three Months on China Demand Concern. Steel reinforcement-bar futures fell
to a three-month low on concern Chinese demand may recede during
winter without more government-funded infrastructure projects.
Rebar for delivery in January on the Shanghai Futures
Exchange fell as much as 1 percent to 3,550 yuan ($580) a metric
ton, the lowest since July 2, and traded at 3,555 yuan at 9:51
a.m. local time.
- Vale(VALE) Sees Iron-Ore Market Oversupplied From 2015 on New Capacity. Vale
SA, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, said supply of the
steelmaking raw material is expected to grow faster than demand,
reducing support for future increases in price. Iron-ore producers may have between 5 percent and 6 percent
more capacity than demand by as early as 2018 as China steel
consumption slows and companies boost output, Vale’s head of
Ferrous & Strategy Jose Carlos Martins told reporters in Sao
Paulo yesterday.
Wall Street Journal:
- Tense Negotiations Inside the Fed Produced Muddled Signals to Markets. The Federal Reserve's decision to continue one of the most audacious
experiments in monetary history—an $85 billion-a-month bond-buying
program designed to boost growth—followed six months of tense
negotiations inside the central bank, and a stumbling effort to let the
public know what was going on. A small group of Fed officials has been privately pushing
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to plan an exit from his signature program,
said several people familiar with the closed-door deliberations. But
glimmers of a weakening economy prompted the Fed in September to keep
the program going—surprising markets primed by months of central-bank
suggestions that a wind-down was nearing.
- Past Rifts Over Greece Cloud Talks on Rescue. Confidential Documents Reveal Deep Divisions at IMF Over 2010 Greek Bailout. The International Monetary Fund proceeded with its record 2010 bailout
of Greece despite deep internal divisions over whether it would work,
according to confidential documents that contradict the fund's public
statements.
Fox News:
- Reid, Boehner escalate feud as Senate Dems quietly craft proposal to raise debt limit. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner
escalated their feud over the budget impasse on Monday, as Senate
Democrats quietly crafted no-strings-attached legislation to raise the
nation's debt limit. The move by Democrats comes amid Republican insistence that any
increase must include concessions on such fiscal matters as entitlement
reform or other spending cuts. The Senate proposal attempts to eliminate such fights until after the 2014 elections.
MarketWatch.com:
CNBC:
Zero Hedge:
- Buffett's Bailout Bonanza. The following chart shows just how well one can do with a few billion in your pocket and an ear for what the Government will do.
ValueWalk:
Reuters:
- Elite U.S. team questions seized al Qaeda leader on Navy ship.
An elite American interrogation team is questioning the senior al Qaeda
figure who was seized by special operations forces in Libya and then
whisked onto a Navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea, U.S. officials said
on Monday. Nazih al-Ragye, better known by
the cover name Abu Anas al-Liby, is being held aboard the USS San
Antonio, an amphibious transport dock ship, the officials said. He
is being questioned by the U.S. High Value Detainee Interrogation
Group, an inter-agency unit created in 2009 and housed in the FBI's
National Security Branch. The group specializes in garnering information
from terrorism suspects to prevent planned attacks.
- Norilsk says will take years to deplete nickel stocks, boost prices. Nickel
prices are unlikely to recover for another two years as producers
struggle with "unprecedented" low prices and a 100,000-tonne surplus, an
executive at Russia's Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM) said on Monday.
One-third of global output, about 600,000 tonnes, is unprofitable at
current prices, which have been hammered by weak demand and big
inventories, particularly in China, head of strategic marketing Anton
Berlin said in a telephone interview.
Sankei:
- Abe Cabinet Support Rate Drops 6.6 Points to 58.6%. Support rate for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet falls 6.6 points m/m to 58.6%, according to a poll conducted by Sankei. Disapproval rate rises to 25.7% from 21.1% in Sept. 62.9% of interviewees oppose raising the sales tax to 10% in Oct. 2015; 28.6% supports.
China Securities Journal:
- Beijing, Shanghai Home Sales Rise During Holiday. Beijing new home sales from Oct. 1-6 almost doubled from a year earlier, citing the municipality's commission of housing and urban-rural development.
Evening Recommendations
Wells Fargo:
- Raised (PG) to Outperform.
- Raised (AVP) to Outperform.
Night Trading
- Asian equity indices are -.25% to +.75% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 149.0 unch.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 117.25 +1.75 basis points.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.02%.
Morning Preview Links
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
Economic Releases
7:30 am EST
- The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for September is estimated to rise to 94.3 versus 94.0 in August.
10:00 am EST
- The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index for October is estimated to fall to 44.0 versus 46.0 in September.
Upcoming Splits
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed's Plosser speaking, Fed's Pianalto speaking, German Factory Orders, BoJ Meeting Minutes, 3Y T-Note auction, weekly retail sales reports, (LUX) investors day, (AGU) investor day, (SFE) investor day, (ACN) analyst conference, (HAIN) analyst day could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by industrial and real estate shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing modestly lower. The Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the day.
Broad Equity Market Tone:
- Advance/Decline Line: Substantially Lower
- Sector Performance: Almost Every Sector Declining
- Market Leading Stocks: Underperforming
Equity Investor Angst:
- Volatility(VIX) 18.69 +11.65%
- Euro/Yen Carry Return Index 137.18 -.39%
- Emerging Markets Currency Volatility(VXY) 9.77 -.31%
- S&P 500 Implied Correlation 55.87 +12.35%
- ISE Sentiment Index 80.0 -13.04%
- Total Put/Call .90 +3.45%
Credit Investor Angst:
- North American Investment Grade CDS Index 81.95 +2.94%
- European Financial Sector CDS Index 135.88 -.03%
- Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 79.0 -4.43%
- Emerging Market CDS Index 285.43 -.22%
- 2-Year Swap Spread 12.75 -.5 basis point
- 3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -7.0 -1.0 basis point
Economic Gauges:
- 3-Month T-Bill Yield .02% unch.
- Yield Curve 228.0 -4 basis points
- China Import Iron Ore Spot $131.40/Metric Tonne unch.
- Citi US Economic Surprise Index 44.0 -.7 point
- Citi Emerging Markets Economic Surprise Index 2.80 +2.0 points
- 10-Year TIPS Spread 2.21 unch.
Overseas Futures:
- Nikkei Futures: Indicating +32 open in Japan
- DAX Futures: Indicating +2 open in Germany
Portfolio:
- Slightly Lower: On losses in my tech/biotech/medical/retail sector longs
- Disclosed Trades: Added to my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges
- Market Exposure: Moved to 25% Net Long
Bloomberg:
- Hedge Funds Expand Bets With Most Junk Since ’08: Credit Markets. Hedge
funds have amassed the greatest
share of the $1.2 trillion U.S. junk-bond market since the credit
crisis, raising concern bets with borrowed cash will accelerate losses
when the Federal Reserve stops printing record amounts of money. The
funds, which typically use leverage to bolster returns,
hold as much as 23 percent of outstanding dollar-denominated
high-yield bonds, from as much as 18 percent last year and the
highest since 2008, according to Barclays Plc. Credit hedge
funds have boosted assets by 89 percent since 2008, outpacing
the 66 percent growth of the junk market, data from Hedge Fund
Research Inc. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show.
- European Stocks Drop.
Burberry Group Plc (BRBY) retreated 1.2 percent as its chief executive
officer told a newspaper that the slowdown in Chinese luxury-goods sales
may continue. SAP AG lost 2.2 percent, contributing the most to a
decline by a gauge of technology stocks, after a report that the German
software maker has held talks with BlackBerry Ltd. Solvay SA (SOLB)
climbed 1.2 percent after
agreeing to buy U.S. chemicals maker Chemlogics Group LLC. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.2 percent to 309.18 at the close in London, after earlier falling as much as 1 percent.
- New American Economy Leaves Behind World Consumer. The rising American economy isn’t lifting all boats -- and may even sink some. A
healthier U.S. even could come at the expense of emerging markets if it
turns into more of a competitor than consumer by boosting manufacturing.
- Egypt Violence Spreads as Security Forces Attacked. A shooting and separate explosion
targeting Egyptian security forces left at least nine dead a day
after 51 people were killed in police clashes with Islamists
that fueled the turmoil threatening the nation’s political
transition. Five soldiers and one officer were killed when gunmen
opened fire on them near the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya,
according to Moustafa Younes, a police officer in the province.
Three policemen were killed in a blast outside a security installation in Southern Sinai, the Interior Ministry said.
Mohamed Darwish, an officer at provincial security directorate,
described it as a car bomb.
- Obamacare Seen Straining Clinics With Medicaid Expansion. 43
percent
of doctors in California and a third nationwide won’t take new Medicaid
patients. Low pay is one of the reasons. A shortage of Medicaid doctors
will leave many newly insured seeking care in a two-tiered system in
which they will
have access to less experienced medical staff, longer travel
times to find a doctor who accepts Medicaid, and be subject to
appointment waiting times sometimes weeks longer than those with
private coverage.
Wall Street Journal:
Fox News:
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
- U.S. venture funds raise $4.1 billion, down 18 percent. U.S. venture capital firms
raised $4.1 billion last quarter, down almost 18 percent from
the same period in 2012, according to data from the National
Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters released on
Monday.
- Frontier markets lure investors chasing yield. After a year of mediocre returns from emerging markets, many investors are searching for yield in so-called frontier markets in hopes that low prices and
potential growth will outweigh the risks in little-developed
lands.
Telegraph:
Les Echos:
- Burberry
CEO Says China Slowdown More Than Temporary. Burberry CEO Angela
Ahrendts says China slowdown in sales of luxury products may be more
than just a "temporary accident" and may constitute a new market trend,
according to an interview.