Wednesday, November 08, 2017

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
  • Trump Team Plans $250 Billion in Deals From China Visit. (video) The White House expects to announce upwards of $250 billion in business deals in China this week, an administration official said -- exactly the sort of U.S. jobs-based diplomacy that President Donald Trump likes to deliver when traveling abroad. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross boasted of that number in a meeting with chief executives in China on Wednesday, but offered few details, according to two people who attended the meeting. A U.S. official confirmed the amount. The details of the pending deals couldn’t be immediately learned on Wednesday. Many of the deals are expected be in the form of nonbinding memorandums of understanding, not contracts.
  • China Traders Take on Risk as Margin Debt Tops One Trillion Yuan. Chinese stock traders are boosting the use of borrowed money to increase their buying power. Outstanding margin debt on local bourses climbed above 1 trillion yuan ($151 billion) on Monday for the first time since January 2016 as the Shanghai Composite Index rallied 12 percent from this year’s low in May. That’s helping lifting sentiment toward brokerages, with Citic Securities Co. rising to a one-month high on Wednesday. Still, with the government emphasizing the need for stability and reduced leverage in the financial sector, any sharp increase in borrowed money is unlikely. Margin debt -- which helped fuel the boom to bust two years ago -- is still less than half of its 2015 peak, and has barely increased as percentage of market capitalization this year. New investors have also not rushed in.
  • Your Evening Briefing.
  • U.S. Copper Premium Holds Steady After Years-Long Drop. The world’s biggest copper producer is set to maintain its fee for physical delivery of the metal to the U.S., ending at least four years of declining premiums, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Codelco, Chile’s state-owned copper giant, will agree to charge about 2.5 cents a pound on top of the price traded in New York for metal delivered to southern U.S. ports in 2018, the people said, asking not to be identified because talks are private. The Santiago-based company declined to comment on negotiations.
  • Here Are Five of Jim Coulter's Big Investment Themes for 2018.
Wall Street Journal:

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