Written by Gary
Wall Street’s three major indexes are now pointing to losses of 0.3% (SPY -0.2%) as investors sift through dovish testimony from Jerome Powell.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
European markets are lower today with shares in London off the most. The FTSE 100 is down 0.77% while Germany’s DAX is off 0.44% and France’s CAC 40 is lower by 0.16%. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Lowe’s beats profit forecasts but warns of weak Canadian marketU.S. home improvement chain Lowe’s beat Wall Street earnings forecasts on Wednesday, but reported disappointing sales growth as it predicted more weakness in Canada following the closure of dozens of unprofitable stores. | |
Oil gains as OPEC defies Trump and sticks to supply cutsOil rallied for a second day on Wednesday, buoyed by an unexpected decline in U.S. crude inventories and after Saudi Arabia appeared undaunted by pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump on OPEC to prevent steeper price rises. | |
Germany’s Merck makes $5.9 billion cash counterbid for VersumDrugs and lab supplies maker Merck KGaA is offering to buy Versum Materials in a cash deal valuing it at $5.9 billion including debt, pitting the German group against Entegris which last month also bid for the electronic materials maker. | |
Campbell Soup beats earnings estimates, shares riseCampbell Soup Co on Wednesday reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings, helped by its acquisitions of Snyder’s-Lance and Pacific Foods. | |
Stock futures dip as Trump-Kim summit starts, India-Pakistan tensions flareU.S. stock index futures edged lower on Wednesday, mirroring global markets, as the second U.S.-North Korean nuclear summit kicked off and fresh hostilities erupted between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan. | |
Saudi Aramco adds Goldman Sachs as bookrunner for planned bond: sourcesSaudi Aramco has added Goldman Sachs as a bookrunner for a planned bond which will help finance its purchase of a stake in Saudi Arabian Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. | |
Impact of India-Pakistan tensions spreads from Asia to EuropeGlobal stocks traded lower on Wednesday after fresh hostilities between India and Pakistan led Asian assets to slip and investors sought “safe havens” such as the yen and Swiss franc. | |
Huawei, Samsung agree to settle patent dispute in U.S. courtChina’s Huawei Technologies and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics have agreed to settle a two-year old patent dispute in the United States, court documents show. | |
Investor Cerberus open to Deutsche Bank merger with Commerzbank: sourceU.S. investor Cerberus, a major shareholder in both Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, is open to a merger between Germany’s two biggest lenders, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, raising the chances of a tie-up. | |
Why Socialism (And/Or Big Government) Sucks In One Simple ChartAuthored by Mark Perry via AEI.org, Chart of the day… Or Century? As I wrote last summer on CD, I’ve probably created and posted more than 3,000 graphics on CD, Twitter, and Facebook including charts/graphs, tables, figures, maps and Venn diagrams over the last 12 years. Of all of those graphics, I don’t think any single one has ever gotten more attention, links, re-Tweets, re-posts, and mentions than the one above (and previous versions), which has been referred to as “the Chart of the Century.” Here are some examples of those mentions from last year for the version of the chart with price data through December 2017. Marketwatch has featured the chart twice here and here and made this comment “Whe … | |
The Most Explosive Claims From Cohen’s Prepared TestimonyAfter Tuesday’s closed door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded without any explosive leaks, disgraced former Trump Attorney Michael Cohen is ready for his prime time moment when he testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. By now, many have already read about some of the most outrageous claims from Cohen’s testimony, which was largely previewed in a series of leaks to the press published earlier in the week. And true to those reports, Cohen accused the president of being a “racist, a conman and a cheat” and offered a series of anecdotes from his time with Trump – as well as a slew of exhibits and documents – to try and back up his claims.
Later on, Cohen alleged that, while Trump has the capacity to act kind, he is not a kind or generous person, and that, since taking office, Trump “has become the worst version of himself.”
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Stocks Slide On India-Pakistan Hostilities As Traders Brace For Day Of FireworksAfter two days of surprising weakness in US cash stocks in the last hour of trading, and following an overnight session in which S&P futures were offline for two hours following a “glitch” at the CME Globex exchange, world markets are a sea of red as stocks fell in Europe alongside US equity futures pressured by disappointing corporate earnings and a dramatic escalation in India-Pakistan hostilities after Pakistan reportedly shot down two Indian fighter jets even as traders brace for a barrage of news including the latest Trump-Kim summit, the Congressional testimony by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, and the second day of Powell’s testimony on the hill this time before Maxine Waters and AOC. Treasuries yields dropped, as did the dollar. The European Stoxx 600 index was down about 0.5%, with all the main regional indexes were in the red as Air France-KLM dropped the most ever and Nivea hand-cream maker Beiersdorf cut guidance, sparking a selloff in consumer stocks. Earlier, all eyes were on the latest Asian geopolitical conflict: S&P futures fell, Japan equities came off their highs, Hong Kong faded an advance after Pakistan said it had downed two Indian jets, sending Indian and P … | |
Huawei Chairman Mocks US “Security Threat” Claims With Jab At SnowdenHuawei executives took advantage of this week’s Mobile World Conference in Barcelona – one of the global telecom industry’s biggest trade events – to mock US allegations that Chinese telecom giant represents a possible security threat for the US’s western allies, when he correctly pointed out that US law requires the same type of security cooperation for which Huawei is allegedly complicit. In remarks that touched a nerve for the US, Huawei Chairman Guo Ping offered what Bloomberg described as “his boldest defense yet” against allegations that Huawei is complicit in espionage during a presentation in Barcelona, where he also brought up the NSA domestic mass-surveillance programs exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden. Many of these programs – like the infamous PRISM program – involved the mandatory cooperation of the US’s biggest tech and telecoms firms in the collection of digital communications. Guo pointed out that US federal law requires companies to hand over data to the government, even when that data is stored on foreign servers. Guo’s macabre sense of humor elicited a fe … | |
Key Words: Lindsey Graham has an answer to those asking, ‘What happened to Lindsey Graham?’It’s relevance he’s after, the South Carolina Republican tells the New York Times. | |
Need to Know: Bear market for stocks already underway, recession coming, says Crescat CapitalOur call of the day, from Octavio ‘Tavi’ Costa, Crescat Capital global macro analyst, sees a recession coming, and thinks investors are blind to the fact the bear market for stocks has already started. | |
The New York Post: Indian fighter jets reportedly shot down by Pakistan as regional tensions heat upThe air raids took place over the disputed territory of Kashmir just one day after India bombed targets in Pakistan, according to BBC. |
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