Tuesday Watch

Evening Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Japan's Central Bank Wants You to Be Wary of Cryptocurrencies.

• U.S. Sell-Off Hits Asia Stocks; Yen Trades Higher. Asian stocks declined as a sell-off in once much-favored U.S. technology shares deepened and volatility soared. Havens like the yen added to gains and Treasuries steadied. Equities in Japan and South Korea declined, and Australia opened lower after a four-day long weekend. The S&P 500 Index closed below its average price for the past 200 days for the first time since June 2016 with fresh presidential criticism of Amazon.com and retaliatory tariffs from China rattling investors. The Cboe Volatility Index jumped 18 percent. The Topix index fell 0.9 percent as of 9:08 a.m. in Tokyo. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 0.3 percent. South Korea’s Kospi index declined 0.8 percent. Futures on the S&P 500 Index were 0.4 percent higher.

• Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day.

Wall Street Journal:

• In the Oil Patch, Bigger Is No Longer Better. Investors grow leery of free-spending energy firms, like discipline of ConocoPhillips.

• EPA Will Ease Vehicle-Emissions Standards. Shift on Obama-era rules that aimed to slow climate change sets up a likely fight with California. 

• Migrant ‘Caravan’ in Mexico Raises Trump’s Ire. Annual protest march to U.S. border prompts tweets criticizing Mexico, DACA, and Nafta.

Fox News: 

• Trump administration sues California over federal land sales.

CNBC: 

• Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro: If we hit all points of Trump's agenda 'the market will go up'. (video)

• Walmart(WMT) is looking at buying PillPack, an online pharmacy, for under $1 billion.

• Buy Intel(INTC) because Apple's(AAPL) reported move to abandon its chips is ‘not a major threat,’ Stifel says.

• Earnings will help reverse market meltdown: Boston Advisors. (video)

• Market plunges on first day of second-quarter trading, but some analysts remain bullish. (video)

• Analyst slashes profit forecast for Nvidia(NVDA) due to plunging cryptocurrency prices.

• Bitcoin's market value should fall by more than a third before year-end, Swiss researchers say.

Zero Hedge:    

• Musk Gets Into Twitter Fight, Says "I Am Back To Sleeping At The Factory".

• Japan's FM Warns North Korea Preparing For Another Nuclear Test.

• Saudi Crown Prince Admits Saudis "Financed Terrorist Groups", Blesses Israeli Statehood.

• Off The Grid Economic Indicators: Q1 2018 Edition.

• National Apartment Rents Stabilize As Small Cities Boom.

• Trump Pushing For Nafta Deal In Next Two Weeks.

• Trump Hits 50% Approval Rating, Surpasses Obama At This Time In His Presidency.

• Stocks Suffer Worst Q2 Start Since The Great Depression. (graph)

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are -.75% to -.25% on average.

• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 78.5 +.5 basis point. 

• Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 13.5 +.25 basis point.

• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 75.21 +.04%.

• FTSE 100 futures -1.02%.

• S&P 500 futures +.42%.

• NASDAQ 100 futures +.43%.

Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate

• (ISCA)/.57

• (CLDR)/-.23

• (PLAY)/.60

Economic Releases
Afternoon

• Wards Total Vehicle Sales for March is estimated to fall to 16.9M versus 16.96M in February.

Upcoming Splits

• None of note

Other Potential Market Movers

• The Fed's Kashkari speaking, Eurozone PMI report, weekly US retail sales reports and the (F) sales conference call for March could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE:  Asian indices are lower, weighed down by technology and industrial 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.