03Mar2015 Pre-Market Opening Commentary: Premarkets Have Fallen Fractionally -0.3%

Here is the European Market Open from CNN Money

European markets are lower today with shares in France off the most. The CAC 40 is down 0.32% while London’s FTSE 100 is off 0.30% and Germany’s DAX is lower by 0.08%.

January 2015 CoreLogic Home Prices Year-over-Year Growth Rate Accelerates to 5.7%

Econintersect: CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 5.7% year-over-year year-over-year (reported up 1.1% month-over-month). There is considerable backward revision in this index which makes monthly reporting problematic. CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves’s Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate.

Fiat Chrysler U.S. February sales dampen expectations for industry

DETROIT (Reuters) – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Tuesday reported that U.S. February sales rose 6 percent, which missed analysts’ expectations and put into question the bullish outlook for monthly industry sales.

Futures dip after Dow, S&P records and Nasdaq 5,000

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Tuesday, after the Dow and S&P marched to new record highs and the Nasdaq topped the 5,000 mark for the first time in 15 years.

Oil rebounds toward $62 as rival Libyan forces trade air strikes

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil rebounded by more than $2 toward $62 a barrel on Tuesday as fighting in Libya, stronger equity markets and firm demand helped Brent futures recover from their biggest one-day loss in a month.

Market Wrap: Futures Decline; Treasurys Weak On Actavis Mega-Deal, Dollar At 12 Year High

With little newsflow out of Europe, and just as little on deck out of the US (just NY ISM and auto sales later today), the main overnight events were out of Asia where first the RBA decided to leave rates unchanged (despite the majority calling for a rate cut) when as Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow noted, in the RBA communique the central bank “changed their reference to China from “China’s growth was in line with expectations” to “China’s growth will slow a little from last year’s outcome.” Whatever may be happening with China, one thing is clear – either the RBA announcement was leaked a minute early, or HFT algos took a huge gamble and soared higher up to a minute earlier (more shortly).

Speaking of China, the rate-cut euphoria lasted just one day, and after a feeble 0.8% bounce on Monday, the SHCOMP was down 2.2% this morning over fears the PBOC is doing too little, too late to halt what is now perceived by many as a massive “tightening” capital flight out of China. Finally, Japan made the newsflow, after it JGBs continued to slide following a weak auction, fears that the BOJ is done easing after Abe advisor Etsuro Honda warned against overheating, and after the biggest jump in base pay in over a decade led some to think the BOJ may soon have to halt easing altogether, especially if real wages proceed to rise.

Another notable development is the ongoing weakness in US rates even as the ECB-buying backstop has made selling of rates in Europe virtually illegal. The weakness in the US 10Y however can be almost entirely attributed to the “mammoth” Actavis-Allergan issue, which is now said to be more than 4x oversubscribed, with nearly $90 billion in orders for just over $20 billion in paper. The result is weakness for matched Treasurys due to rate locks: as InTouch David Fuller’s writes watch for “late rate lock unwinds into/out of pricing” though it depends on how big rate lock was Feb. 26 and “whether end-users buy it outright or …

Strong German retail sales keep European shares near seven-year highs

LONDON (Reuters) – European shares rose close to seven-year highs on Tuesday as better than expected German retail sales further buoyed investors days before the European Central Bank kicks off a trillion-euro bond buying program.

Weak U.S. consumer spending points to slower first-quarter growth

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending fell for a second straight month in January as households continued to cut back on purchases, opting to save much of the massive windfall from cheaper gasoline.

Despite Russian Warnings, US Will Deploy A Battalion To Ukraine By The End Of The Week

“Before this week is up, we’ll be deploying a battalion… to the Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces for the fight that’s taking place,” stated US 173rd Airborne Brigade Commander Colonel Michael Foster said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC on Monday. Despite earlier warnings from Russia (and claims that NATO had not agreed to any such foreign ‘boots on the ground’ action’), Sputnik News reports, Foster added, “what we’ve got laid out is six United States companies that will be training six Ukrainian companies throughout the summer.”

This comes a week after PM David Cameron confirmed Britain will be sending 75 military personnel to help combat Russian military aggression.

Despite earlier reports from Russia’s NATO envoy that, as TASS reports,

NATO has taken no decisions on sending British or any other instructors to Ukraine, Russia’s Ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance Alexander Grushko said on Monday.

“NATO has taken no decisions on sending instructors,” he told the Rossiya 24 television channel. “NATO is implementing the decisions that were taken at the political level at the Wales summit in September 2014.”