Style Outperformer:
Sector Outperformers:
- 1) Utilities +1.2% 2) REITs -.2% 3) Foods -.4%
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
- 1) CME 2) SH 3) SPXS 4) MPLX 5) KATE
Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:
- 1) GME 2) ABX 3) NEM 4) TSLA 5) AAL
Charts:
Night Trading
- Asian indices are -.50% to +.75% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 150.75 +10.25 basis points.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 55.0 +4.25 basis points.
- Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 71.15 -.17%.
- S&P 500 futures -.36%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures -.38%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- The Advance Goods Trade Balance for May is estimated at -$59.5B versus -$57.5B in April.
9:45 am EST
- Preliminary Markit US Services PMI for June is estimated to rise to 52.0 versus 51.3 in May.
10:30 am EST
- The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity Index for June is estimated to rise to -15.0 versus -20.8 in May.
Upcoming Splits
Other Potential Market Movers
- The ECB's Draghi speaking, German retail sales report and the JPMorgan Energy Conference could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by industrial and technology shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing modestly lower. The Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the week.
BOTTOM LINE: I expect US stocks to finish the week modestly lower on EU disintegration fears, rising European/Emerging Markets/US High-Yield debt angst, commodity weakness, yen strength, technical selling and global growth worries. My intermediate-term trading indicators are giving neutral signals and the Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the week.
Bloomberg:
- Watershed Vote Ruins S&P 500 Week. After futures plunged more than 5 percent in the darkest hours of Brexit
drama early Friday, the S&P 500 Index reverted, erasing nearly half
of its losses by the time exchanges opened. Because it rallied 2
percent in the four days leading into the vote, the index finished the
week down just 1.6 percent, compared with losses double those in other
developed-world markets. The pound fell the most on record, Japanese stocks lost the most since
2011 and the Euro Stoxx 50 Index tumbled the most since at least 1987.
In the U.S., Treasuries rallied, sending yields on the benchmark 10-year
down the most in more than seven years. Still, even after a drop of 3.6
percent on Friday, the S&P 500 stayed near the roughly 80-point
range between 2,040 and 2,120, in which it has been locked since late
March. It closed Friday at 2,037.3.
- Spanish Bonds Set for Volatility With Repeat Election Looming. Spanish government bonds may see more volatility next week after
voters go to the polls Sunday to try to break a six-month political
deadlock over who will govern the euro region’s fourth-largest economy. The
nation’s securities plunged on Friday, with the 10-year yield jumping
the most this year, after Britain voted to quit the European Union.
Riskier assets suffered as the decision threw uncertainty onto the
political future of Europe, bolstering speculation other nations will
move to hold similar referendums. “Brexit basically exacerbates all political risk within Europe,” said
Peter Chatwell, head of rates strategy at Mizuho International Plc in
London. “The protest vote just got more momentum, and we think there
will be more inclination to vote against the established parties in the
near term. This should be a boon for Podemos, and we would approach the
weekend with caution. ”Spain’s 10-year bond yield jumped 17 basis points, or 0.17 percentage point, to 1.63 percent as of the 5 p.m. London close.
- U.K. Must Leave EU as Soon as Possible, EU Foreign Ministers Say. The European Union’s founding members increased pressure on the U.K.
to leave the bloc as soon as possible following this week’s stunning
referendum as Scotland accelerated plans to take another run at
independence. Six EU foreign ministers said in Berlin that the
bloc needs to move on and avoid a political vacuum. While EU Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker said he doesn’t expect “an amicable
divorce,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated her desire today to
avoid “ugly negotiations.”
- Scotland Starts Toward Independence Vote to Keep EU Ties. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said her government started
work on legislation for a new referendum on independence after the U.K.
as a whole decided to quit the European Union while Scotland voted to
remain. Speaking after an emergency meeting of her cabinet in
Edinburgh on Saturday, Sturgeon said she will also be seeking talks with
European leaders and the institutions of the EU about ways of
continuing Scotland’s relationship with the bloc. The semi-autonomous
government will appoint a panel of advisers in coming weeks and convene a
meeting of consuls from EU member states. “A second independence
referendum is clearly an option that requires to be on the table, and it
is very much on the table; to ensure that option is a deliverable one
in the required timetable, steps will be taken now to ensure the
necessary legislation is in place,” Sturgeon said in a televised
statement outside her official Bute House residence. “We are determined
to act decisively, but in a way that builds unity across Scotland about
the way forward.”
- Shock Waves Ripple Through Credit Markets After U.K. Brexit Vote. Shock waves reverberated through credit markets after the U.K. voted to quit the European Union. Measures
of risk for corporate bonds and money markets surged. The Markit iTraxx
Europe Index of credit-default swaps insuring investment-grade
corporate bonds rose by the most since 2008, according to prices
compiled by Bloomberg. A gauge of where bank borrowing costs will be in
the months ahead, known as the FRA/OIS spread, hit the most extreme
level since 2012 and a key rate of the cost for banks to convert euro
cash flows into dollars increased. More than $19.7 billion of protection on the investment-grade
benchmark changed hands on Friday, almost five times an average full
day, Bloomberg data show. Traders have bought and sold $55 billion of
swaps on the index so far this week. The investment-grade
derivatives index jumped 18 basis points to 92 basis points as of 3 p.m.
in London, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The three-month
FRA/OIS spread widened to as much as 0.34 percentage point, from 0.27 on
Thursday. The measure indicates where traders expect the gap between
the three-month dollar London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and the
Fed Funds Effective Rate -- dubbed Libor/OIS -- will be in the future. The
three-month euro-dollar cross-currency swap rate widened to 43 basis
points below Euribor from a spread of minus 36 basis points on Thursday,
the biggest increase since December 2015.
- U.K. Rating at Risk of Downgrade by Moody’s, S&P on Brexit. Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings may lower the
U.K.’s credit grade after the country voted to leave the European Union. S&P will give the country 24-hours notice, including one working
day, to lower the rating “at least one notch” from AAA, Moritz
Kraemer, S&P’s global sovereign chief ratings officer, said in an
interview on Bloomberg Television on Friday. Moody’s in a report later
Friday lowered its outlook on the country to negative from stable, a
move toward a downgrade. It has the U.K. one step lower than S&P, at
Aa1.
- Brexit Aftershocks Rattle Markets as Cameron Quits. (video) Britain’s stunning vote to leave the European Union spread turmoil
across the world’s financial markets and dismay through Europe’s
capitals, where EU leaders gave an early warning that the looming
divorce talks may prove bitter. The pound plunged to the lowest
since 1985, global stocks tumbled and bonds and gold rallied after U.K.
voters backed Brexit by 52 percent to 48. Prime Minister David Cameron
resigned after the defeat of his Remain campaign, saying he will serve a
few more months before making way for a successor who’ll negotiate the
details of departure. Boris Johnson, a leading Brexiter and the early favorite to replace
Cameron, also said there’s no rush to get the official separation
process under way. But EU leaders signaled they have a different
timetable in mind. “The U.K. will no longer be part of the EU, and the
procedures dealing with its departure will be enacted quickly,” French
President Francois Hollande said. In Brussels, a trio of top officials
said the U.K.’s government must “give effect to this decision of the
British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may
be.”
- Germany, France Struggle to Hold EU Center as Brexit Storm Blows. (video) Within hours of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union,
nationalist parties across the bloc were clamoring for their own exit
referendums, including in France, one half of the two-nation engine that
has driven the EU project since its beginnings as a lowly coal and
steel union in 1951. That laid bare the challenge facing German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande as they
try to hold the rest of the 27 nations of the EU together, as for the
first time a full member has decided it would be better off alone.
- Japan Considers Unilateral Yen Intervention Post Brexit: Nikkei. Japan’s government and central bank are considering measures, including
unilateral intervention in the currency market, to counter any abrupt
gains in the yen, the Nikkei newspaper reported. Intervention may take place if yen demand jumps abruptly following
U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union, and there is enough pressure on
the economy and inflation, the newspaper reported Saturday. It cited an
unnamed Finance Ministry official as saying action is possible even
without U.S. approval in a “fight’’ to protect ‘‘national interests.”
Calls to the ministry and the Bank of Japan outside business hours
weren’t answered.
- For U.S. Exporters Who Profited From One Europe, New Uncertainty. For U.S. exporters already dealing with multiple sets of regulations,
duties and tariffs across the globe, the post-Brexit world is a mess
that will take years to sort out. In the decades since the European Union was created, American exporters
have, with some exceptions, been able to count on a uniform set of
regulations and standards. That could end now as Britain will be freed
from EU rules and could begin the years-long process of replacing them
with its own, impacting companies ranging from behemoths such as Boeing
Co. and Caterpillar Inc. -- as well as smaller ones fighting for a
toehold in the vast market.
- They Got It Wrong: Swarms of Global Chatterers Misread Brexit. A global cohort said before Thursday’s Brexit vote that Britain was
unlikely to pull out of the European Union, the post-World War II
international project that brought an unprecedented era of prosperity
and peace. Yet some were led astray by the belief that free trade’s
money and material goods outweighed nationalism and the tug of
nostalgia. Among those who were wrong about Brexit before the vote:
- World’s 400 Richest People Lose $127 Billion on Brexit: Chart.
- Brexit Winners Emerge in Hedge-Fund Community Amid Market Chaos. Hours after Britain’s decision to leave the European Union sparked
mayhem across global financial markets, a handful of prescient investors
began to emerge as big winners. Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey,
an advocate of a British exit, gained more than 15 percent in his
flagship fund on Friday, according to a person familiar with the
situation. Several hedge funds that use computers to follow trends,
including David Harding’s Winton Capital Management, also reported
gains. Shares of a Canadian insurer that was betting on deflation
rallied. They were among the few -- or, at least, the known few --
who profited as the pound plunged to the lowest since 1985, global
stocks tumbled and bonds and gold rallied.
- China Tightens Internet Rules for Baidu and Other Search Engines. Chinese authorities will require Baidu Inc. and other search engines
to report banned content and verify advertisers’ qualifications in its
latest attempt at Internet regulation. Under rules to take effect
Aug. 1, search engines operating in the country will be prohibited from
providing banned information in various formats including links,
summaries, cached pages, associative words, related searches and
relevant recommendations, the Cyberspace Administration of China said
in a statement. They will also be required to report websites and
applications that contain prohibited content when spotted, the regulator
said.
- China Halts Taiwan Liaison Link on Lack of One-China Support. China has halted a communications channel with Taiwan because the
island’s new government has failed to affirm the "one-China" principle. Taiwan’s
president, sworn in on May 20, failed to declare support for the
principle that Taiwan is part of China and as a result the mechanism for
the two sides to liaise has been suspended, the official Xinhua News
Agency reported, citing An Fengshan, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan
Affairs Office.
Barron's:
- Had bullish commentary on (GS).
Business Insider:
@Convertbond:
Fiscal Times:
- Why 'Brexit' Is the Biggest Threat Yet to This Bull Market. If central bankers support markets here — keeping stocks in the
low-volatility sideways crawl of the last three months, capping a
three-year consolidation near Dow 18,000 — it will prove all the
pre-Brexit fearmongering hollow and will encourage pro-independence
votes in Italy and elsewhere. But if they let markets fall, volatility will beget volatility as one
of the few bright spots in the global economy darkens. Years of central
bank intervention and easy gains have encouraged risk-taking and
leverage accumulation. The collapse could be swift and severe.