Monday, November 30, 2015

Tuesday Watch

Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:
  • Europe's `Ticking Time Bombs' Are Set for Shorting, Block Says. Carson Block, the short-seller whose bet against Asia’s Noble Group Ltd. helped sink its shares earlier this year, is targeting the "ticking time bombs" of western Europe. Block, who runs research firm Muddy Waters, said European companies are ripe for shorting because of their indebtedness and a lack of scrutiny by investors. In a Real Vision interview to be aired Friday, he said that investors in Europe follow a code that makes it impolite to ask hard questions. “We think Europe has a number of companies that are really problematic, heavily financially-engineered, indebted and where investors just haven’t done the work,” he said in the Nov. 24 interview on the financial video-on-demand channel. “Given what’s happened with interest rates in Europe and this environment that’s conducive to bad companies borrowing, I think it’s really created a lot of ticking time bombs.” 
  • China November Manufacturing PMI Below Expectations. (video) 
  • China Bears Who Foresaw the Crash Are Back With Record ETF Short. U.S. short sellers are piling on bets against Chinese equities at the fastest pace since the height of the nation’s stock-market bubble five months ago. Short interest in the largest U.S. exchange-traded fund tracking domestic Chinese stocks more than doubled in two weeks to a record 28 percent of shares outstanding on Nov. 27, according to data compiled by Markit and Bloomberg. When such wagers last climbed this fast in June, short sellers proved prescient as China’s equity-market boom turned into a $5 trillion rout.
  • Economic Takeaways From South Korea's Trade, Inflation Data. Exports fell 4.7 percent in November from a year earlier (-9 percent forecast). Exports for the year to date are down 7.4 percent compared with the same period last year.
  • Sydney Home Prices Drop Most in Five Years as Regulation Bites. Sydney home prices fell the most in five years in November as a regulatory crackdown forces banks to tighten lending and increase mortgage rates. Dwelling values in Australia’s largest city dropped 1.4 percent from a month earlier, data from property researcher CoreLogic Inc. showed on Tuesday. That was the biggest drop since December 2010 and the first decline since May. Prices across the nation’s capital cities dropped 1.5 percent, with Melbourne leading with a 3.5 percent decrease.
  • Morgan Stanley Calls 2016 the Year of the Yen With BOJ on Hold. The yen will outshine the dollar as next year’s star performer in the $5.3 trillion-a-day global currency market, according to Morgan Stanley. In what it calls an "out-of-consensus" prediction, the bank said it expects Japan’s currency to strengthen to 115 against the greenback at the end of 2016. That contrasts with a median forecast for the yen to weaken 126 per dollar, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Morgan Stanley’s top trading recommendations for next year include buying the yen against the British pound, Swiss franc, South Korean won and offshore Chinese yuan, according to a Nov. 29 report.
  • China's Stocks Fall to One-Month Low After Manufacturing Data. China’s benchmark stock index fell to the lowest level in a month after data showed manufacturing conditions are deteriorating, overshadowing the International Monetary Fund’s decision to add the yuan to its basket of reserve currencies. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.3 percent to 3,435.46 at 9:35 a.m. local time, led by financial companies.
  • Asian Stocks Rise Before China Factory Data as Lenders Advance. Asian stocks rose after Monday’s selloff as investors awaited Chinese factory data and financial shares climbed. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.3 percent to 132.19 as of 9:00 a.m. in Tokyo after dropping 1 percent on Monday to cap a 2 percent decline for November. 
  • Copper Drops With Metals After Chinese Factory Activity Slows. Copper declined with other metals after an official gauge of factory activity in China deteriorated, underscoring a weak outlook for demand in the world’s biggest metals consumer. China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to 49.6 last month, lower than in a survey of economists and below 50 indicating deterioration. The official PMI figure has been in contraction territory for four months. Copper for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange dropped 0.5 percent to $4,561.50 a ton by 9:29 a.m. in Shanghai. Nickel slid 0.2 percent and zinc fell 0.8 percent.
  • Copper Bears See More Pain as Prices Trade at Lowest Since 2009. Hedge funds are betting there’s more pain in store for copper, even with prices trading at the lowest in six years.Money managers are holding the biggest net-short position in the metal since August. Futures are trading near the lowest since 2009 as economic growth slows to the weakest pace in more than two decades in China, the world’s top consumer. Declining industrial profits in the Asian country added to concern that the government still hasn’t done enough to spur a rebound.
Wall Street Journal:
  • Companies Shy Away From Spending. Growth in investments limited by uneven consumer demand, global turmoil. Business investment across the U.S. is fizzling out. Companies appear reluctant to step up spending on the basic building blocks of the economy, such as machines, computers and new buildings. The broadest measure of U.S. business investment advanced 2.2% from a year earlier in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said last week, marking one of the worse performances of the six-year-old economic expansion.
  • World Leaders in Paris Vow to Overcome Divisions on Climate Change. President Barack Obama calls on countries to ‘rise to this moment’. World leaders on Monday vowed to finish a deal to curb greenhouse gases and overcome a thorny divide on financing, as they kicked off international climate talks against a backdrop of heavy security.
  • Obama’s Appalachian Tragedy. The president’s anti-coal policies have devastated West Virginia. Since 2009, 332 mines have closed. ‘The traveler comes to the Appalachians in the lovely season. He sees the hills, the streams, the foliage—but not the poor.” That passage comes from “The Other America,” Michael Harrington’s 1962 book that opened the eyes of liberal policy makers to America’s invisible poverty. The classic work helped provide the intellectual ammunition for President Lyndon Johnson’s “unconditional war on poverty,” announced in his State of the Union address two years later.
Fox News:
  • Nearly 1,000 Clinton emails had classified info. (video) The State Department’s latest release of Hillary Clinton documents brings the total number of Clinton emails known to contain classified material to nearly 1,000. The department on Monday released its largest batch of emails yet, posting 7,800 pages of the former secretary of state’s communications. The latest batch contains 328 emails deemed to have classified information. According to the State Department, that brings the total number with classified information to 999.
MarketWatch.com:
CNBC:
Zero Hedge:
Reuters:
Telegraph:
Evening Recommendations 
  • None of note
Night Trading 
  • Asian equity indices are +.50% to +1.50% on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 130.25 +.5 basis point.
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 68.25 -.75 basis points.
  • Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 70.25 +.13%.
  • S&P 500 futures +.60%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures +.57%.
Morning Preview Links 

Earnings of Note 
Company/Estimate
  • (BNS)/1.44
  • (BOBE)/.39
  • (POWL)/.47
Economic Releases
9:45 am EST
  • Final Markit US Manufacturing PMI for November is estimated at 52.6 versus a prior estimate of 52.6.
10:00 am EST
  • Construction Spending for October is estimated to rise +.6% versus a +.6% gain in September.
  • ISM Manufacturing for November is estimated to rise to 50.5 versus 50.1 in October.
  • ISM Prices Paid for November is estimated to rise to 40.0 versus 39.0 in October.
Afternoon:
  • Total Vehicle Sales for November are estimated to rise to 14.25M versus 14.14M in October.
Upcoming Splits
  • (CTRP) 2-for-1
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The Fed's Evans speaking, Eurozone PMI, Eurozone Unemployment rate, weekly US retail sales reports, Cowen Energy conference, Citi Basic Materials conference, Goldman Metals/Mining conference, Piper Healthcare conference and the (JCI) anaylst meeting could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are higher, boosted by industrial and financial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the day.

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