28Jul2016 Pre-Market Commentary: US Stock Futures Down And Flat, WTI Crude Set Slip Further, US Dollar Steady And Short-Term Indicators Neutral

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are mixed today. The CAC 40 is up 0.11% while the DAX gains 0.05%. The FTSE 100 is off 0.10%.

Fed caution hits dollar as Japan anticipation builds

LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar took its biggest tumble in almost two months on Thursday and stocks crept to nine-month highs as cautious sounds from the U.S. Federal Reserve left the focus firmly on Japan’s next round of money-printing measures.

Lackluster U.S., China sales drag on Ford Motor profit; shares drop

DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co reported weaker-than-expected profit in the second quarter, and said its full-year earnings forecast was at risk with U.S. auto sales expected to fall in the second half, sending shares tumbling in premarket trading.

Oracle buys NetSuite in $9.3 billion deal

(Reuters) – Oracle Corp said it agreed to acquire NetSuite Inc, a cloud-based software services provider, in a deal valued at about $9.3 billion.

Dow Chemical’s profit handily beats estimates as costs fall

(Reuters) – Dow Chemical Co , the No.1 U.S. chemical maker by sales, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as cost cuts helped boost margins.

Fed leaves rates unchanged, says risks to outlook reduced

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but said near-term risks to the U.S. economic outlook had diminished, opening the door to a resumption of monetary policy tightening this year.

As iPhone sales stagnate, services promise growth for Apple

(Reuters) – Though Apple Inc is selling enough iPhones to keep investors happy for now, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company is set increasingly to rely on its apps and services to drive growth.

Shell disappoints market as weak oil, BG deal costs hit profits

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has disappointed investors with a 72 percent fall in quarterly profit that it blamed on weak oil prices and costs related to its $54 billion takeover of BG Group, showing how much strain it faces after the bumper deal.

Bytes and barrels: the origins of oil traders’ love of Yahoo

NEW YORK (Reuters) – For the oil industry, Yahoo Inc’s decision this week to sell its core business to Verizon Communications Inc for $4.8 billion does not matter all that much. Their world already changed a few months ago, when the company said it would jettison its messaging system that has been the norm for oil traders since the late 1990s.

Prosecutors drop appeal after ex-Porsche CEO cleared of market manipulation

BERLIN (Reuters) – German prosecutors on Thursday dropped an appeal against a court ruling that acquitted former Porsche SE chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking of market manipulation during a 2008-9 takeover battle with Volkswagen .

Deutsche Bank: “There Is An Element Of Torture To The FOMC Cycle In This Broken Financial System”

DB’s Jim Reid shares his perspective on yesterday’s Fed announcement:

There is also an element of torture to the FOMC cycle in recent years. The pattern for the Fed is that you slowly talk up the prospects of an imminent hike, you then get closer to it, build it up even more and then just before you pull the trigger something invariably happens in this broken global financial system to force you to pull back and start from scratch. Last night’s statement from the Fed hinted that they are starting this process again though. As we expected it was slightly more hawkish (i.e. leaving the door ajar for September) but it’s clear that there’s a way to go yet before they feel they can safely pull the trigger.

The big takeaway from the statement was the observation that ‘near term risks to the economic outlook have diminished’. Much of that will likely reflect much calmer markets post Brexit and also the bounce back in employment data since that weak May payrolls print. On that the statement showed that committee members viewed recent job gains as being ‘strong’ and also that labour utilization has shown ‘some increase’. Also noted was the observation that household spending has ‘been growing strongly’. On the inflation side of things, there wasn’t really much of a change in view with the statement revealing that ‘market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low’ and that ‘most survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations are little changed, on balance in recent months’.

Unsurprisingly there was no guidance as to when the Fed might next hike and market probabilities based on futures pricing were actually fairly little moved. The odds of a September hike are hovering around 26% this morning, while December is at 45% …

Gold Bullion Up 1.6%, Silver Surges 3.7% After Poor U.S. Data and Dovish Fed

Gold bullion was up 1.6% and silver surged 3.7% yesterday, their second consecutive day of gains, after U.S. durable-goods orders dropped sharply, adding to speculation that Federal Reserve policy makers will maintain ultra loose monetary policies. Gold and silver consolidated on those gains in Asia and in early European trading.

2016 YTD Relative Performance

Both precious metals are set for further gains in July consolidating on the gains in the first two quarters. This is bullish from a technical, momentum and sentiment perspective.

Bookings for durable goods, goods meant to last at least three years, fell a very sharp 4 per cent in June, a bigger fall than forecast and the most since August 2014.

Gold moved higher as the Fed concluded a two-day meeting, where policy makers left interest rates unchanged claiming&nbs …

Wikileaks Releases Hacked DNC Voicemails During Convention Speeches

Last night, just ahead of the Democratic National Convention’s prime time event as president Obama was set to begin his speech praising Hillary and slamming Trump, Wikileaks released another batch of leaked data from the DNC, this time in the form of hacked voicemails from top Democratic officials. However, a cursory skim of the release underwhelmed, suggesting no major developments would emerge as a result of this particular disclosure.

The new material includes 29 phone calls, totaling about 14 minutes. Many of them are complaints directed at the Democratic National Committee. That said, this is probably not the end of it because as we reported two days ago, Julian Assange warned CNN there would be “a lot more material” to come, following the publishing of hacked Democratic National Committee internal emails this past Friday.

RELEASE: The DNC recordings https://t.co/OIv1xjpp6c #DNCLeak #DNCinPHL

Recordings: https://t.co/TTyre5UIOD

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 27, 2016

“I’m furious about what you are doing for Bernie Sanders,” a caller from the 480, Phoenix, area code, said in one voicemail message, listed as file #16014.

“He is getting way too much influence. I am on fixed income and I spent over $300 donated to Hillary, and what I see is the DNC bending over backwards for Bernie. And Bernie is the worst person in the world even to be running in a Democratic party bec …

Facebook’s Huge Crowd-Pleaser

The social-networking giant defies law of large numbers, showing benefits of scale.

Oil’s Slide and That Sinking Feeling for Inflation Watchers

Lower oil prices may delay – yet again – an expected pick-up in headline inflation.

China Outflows Fuel Insurance Giant’s Engine

AIA isn’t a bargain, but the company remains on stable footing with or without China’s vacillating capital outflows.

23 July 2016 Initial Unemployment Claims: Rolling Averages Improves. 73 Consecutive Weeks of Initial Claims Below 300,000.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims

The market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Bloomberg) were 260,000 to 265,000 (consensus 264,000), and the Department of Labor reported 266,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported claims and seasonality errors in adjusting the data) 4 week moving average moved from 257,500 (reported last week as 257,750) to 256,500. The rolling averages generally have been equal to or under 300,000 since August 2014.

May 2015 Philly Fed Coincident Index Rate of Year-over-Year Rate Of Growth Continues to Slow

The year-over-year rate of growth of the US Coincident Index marginally slowed relative to last month’s revised level. A comparison of this US Coincident Index with the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti business conditions index, Conference Board Coincident Index, ECRI’s Coincident Index, and the Chicago Fed National Activity Index follows.

Could subprime auto loans lead to same economic catastrophe as risky mortgages?

The auto-loan market has been called “stretched,” but it’s far from being the powder keg that the mortgage market was when the globe plunged into a financial crisis some eight years ago, loan and credit experts emphasized.

The Ratings Game: Analysts: That speeding train is Facebook so get out of the way

It was hard to find any analyst willing to take the negative road on Facebook after blockbuster results Wednesday, but one did step forward.

Economic Report: Jobless claims climb 14,000 to 266,000

The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose by 14,000 to 266,000 but remained extremely low, reflecting a still-growing economy in which companies are hiring at a steady clip.