Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Thursday Watch

Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:
  • Nafta Nations Plan More Talks for Mexico in February. The U.S., Canada and Mexico plan a seventh round of negotiations for a new Nafta deal for February in Mexico City even as they focus on preparations for talks in Montreal in two weeks, according to two people familiar with the plans. Negotiations to update the accord have been organized into rounds, or week-long sessions where groups meet to hammer out the details of about 30 chapters under discussion. The talks began in Washington in August and have rotated between the three nations every few weeks since. The Jan. 23-28 round taking place in Quebec will be the first held outside a capital city, and the talks will then return to Mexico the next month, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing plans that haven’t been announced publicly.
  • Stocks Fall as Rally Loses Steam, Yen Strengthens. The stellar run for equities that ushered in the new year showed signs of waning in Asia on Thursday as the yen strengthened to a six-week high and traders dialed back their appetite for risky assets amid a jump in government bond yields. The yen held gains against all its G-10 peers, dragging down shares in Tokyo. Equities in Seoul and Sydney also fell after the S&P 500 Index slipped overnight. The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso maintained losses triggered by a report that Canadian officials see rising odds the Trump administration will leave Nafta. Japan’s Topix index slid 0.4 percent as of 9:43 a.m. in Tokyo. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.4 percent and South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.3 percent. Futures on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost 0.1 percent. Futures on the S&P 500 were little changed after the underlying gauge slipped 0.1 percent Wednesday, paring losses of as much as 0.6 percent earlier in the session. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.3 percent, having climbed 4.1 percent from the start of the year through Wednesday.
Wall Street Journal:
MarketWatch.com
CNBC:
Business Insider:
Night Trading 
  • Asian equity indices are -.50% to unch. on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 60.0 +.25 basis point
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 10.5 +.75 basis point.
  • Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 74.84 +.08%.
  • S&P 500 futures +.01%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures -.03%.
Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate

  • (DAL)/.89
  • (FCEL)/-.20
  • (SJR)/.29
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
  • PPI Final Demand MoM for December is estimated to rise +.2% versus a +.4% gain in November. 
  • PPI Ex Food and Energy MoM for December is estimated to rise +.2% versus a +.3% gain in November.
  • Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to fall to 245K versus 250K the prior week.
  • Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 1920K versus 1914K prior.
2:00 pm EST
  • Monthly Budget Statement for December is estimated at -$26.0B versus -$138.5B in November.
Upcoming Splits
  • None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The Australian Retail Sales report, Eurozone Industrial Production report, $12B 30Y T-Bond auction, weekly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and the weekly EIA natural gas inventory report could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE:  Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by consumer and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly lower and to rally into the afternoon, finishing mixed.  The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.

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