06Aug2019 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street Set To Rebound, DOW Futures Up 240 Points, WTI Crude At 56.00, US Dollar At 97.65, Gold Index Higher At 1465, China Stabilized Its Currency Overnight

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are higher today with shares in France leading the region. The CAC 40 is up 0.87% while Germany’s DAX is up 0.50% and London’s FTSE 100 is up 0.09%.

Mastercard to buy part of payments company Nets for $3.19 billion

Payments processor Mastercard Inc on Tuesday said it would buy a majority of the corporate services businesses of European payments company Nets for about $3.19 billion.

China says U.S. currency manipulator labeling could cause chaos in financial markets

China’s central bank said on Tuesday that Washington’s decision to label Beijing as a currency manipulator would “severely damage international financial order and cause chaos in financial markets”.

Trump says U.S. economy ‘in a very strong position’

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday dismissed concerns over a protracted trade war with China, saying the United States was “in a very strong position,” a day after his administration ratcheted up tensions by labeling Beijing a currency manipulator.

Futures rebound after Wall Street’s worst day of 2019

U.S. stock index futures signaled a bounce on Tuesday, as China stepped in to steady the yuan and investors sought beaten-down stocks, a day after Wall Street’s main indexes racked up their steepest one-day percentage fall of the year.

Rout eases as China keeps yuan on a leash

A rout in global markets eased on Tuesday as China kept the yuan on a tight leash after its landmark drop past 7 to the dollar led the United States to label Beijing a currency manipulator.

Vivendi turns to Tencent to gain Universal foothold in China

Vivendi is in talks to sell up to 20% of Universal Music Group (UMG) to Tencent , valuing its prized asset at around 30 billion euros ($34 billion), in an attempt to break into China’s growing but tightly-controlled music market.

Apple, Goldman Sachs start issuing Apple Cards to consumers

Apple Inc rolled out its virtual credit card on Tuesday, working with bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc on the new iPhone add-on that may help Apple diversify from device sales and build out the Wall Street bank’s new consumer business.

Exclusive: China’s Huawei seeks compensation from Flex over withheld goods

Huawei Technologies said it was seeking compensation from its contract manufacturer Flex Ltd for illegally withholding some 400 million yuan ($57 million) worth of its goods in the wake of a U.S. trade ban on the Chinese firm.

China to unveil special tax policy in Shanghai Free Trade Zone

China said on Tuesday it will implement a special tax policy in the newly expanded Shanghai Free Trade Zone, in a bid to promote free trade as Beijing’s year-long trade dispute with Washington threatened to escalate into a full-blown economic war.

Stocks, Yuan Pop As PBOC Issues Statement Claiming ‘All Is Well’

US equity futures popped higher along with the offshore yuan after PBOC issued a brief statement claiming that it is not a currency manipulator and tells foreign firms that yuan won’t keep falling.

As Reuters reports, China firmly opposes a U.S. decision to label it a currency manipulator, its central bank said on Tuesday, adding that Beijing has not used and will not use the yuan to cope with trade frictions with the world’s biggest economy. Designating China as a currency manipulator seriously harms international rules, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement.

Stocks, already rebounding overnight, gained a little more…

Goldman Capitulates: Sees No Trade Deal Before 2020 Election, Now Expect Threes Rate Cuts In 2019

As late as last December, Goldman was expecting four rate hikes in 2019. Then, as recently as mid-June, the “smartest men in the Goldman room”, did not expect the Fed to cut rates at all in July and September. Of course, all that changed when it became clear that “Powell has thrown in the towel”, and will follow the demands of the president and the whims of the market, resulting in the first “mid-cycle” rate cut last month in over a decade.

And now, Goldman has once again shown that its forecasting ability is the functional equivalent of a coin toss, when late on Monday night Goldman economist David Mercile said Goldman no longer expects the US and China to agree on a deal to end their trade war before the November 2020 presidential election as policymakers from the world’s largest economies are “taking a harder line”.

On the US side, press reports indicate that President Trump made the decision to raise tariffs despite the strong objections of all but one of his advisors, Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, and threatened to lift tariff rates even further to “well beyond 25%” if necessary. Just this evening, the Treasury Department took the further step of designating China a currency manipulator. While we had previously assumed that President Trump would see making a deal as more advantageous to his 2020 re-election prospects, we are now less confident that this is his view.

On the Chinese side, the currency depreciation past the symbolically important level of 7 yuan per dollar and the announcement that China has suspended purchases of US agricultural goods added up to a swift and meaningful response. News reports suggest that Chinese poli …

Relief Rally Sweeps Across Global Markets After China Stabilizes Plunging Yuan

With the world on the verge of panic last night after the US Treasury’s shocking announcement for the first time in 25 years that China was branded a currency manipulator (after ignoring China’s efforts for years to prop up its currency, just so Beijing would avoid a massive capital flight, all it took was one day of allowing the yuan to tumble for Trump to be triggered), a wave of relief swept across global markets when the PBOC fixed the yuan at 6.9683 per dollar, not only stronger than the 7.00 “line in the sand”, but also marginally stronger relative to the 6.9871 forecast by analysts and traders surveyed by Bloomberg, and the 6.9736 forecast by a major Chinese publication.

China’s Largest Oil Company Caught Importing Iranian Crude

The Trump Administration’s decision to reimpose sanctions on the Iranian oil trade has dramatically reduced Iranian crude exports – but it hasn’t stopped some of the US’s largest economic rivals from accepting shipments of Iranian crude, according to several media investigations. Not only has China continued to import Iranian crude, so have several other Asian and Mediterranean countries, according to data from several tanker tracking services studied by the New York Times and other media organizations.

Per the NYT, in April 2018, before Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels of oil per day. One year later, that figure was at one million. And in June, after the end of the exceptions or waivers, ships in Iranian ports loaded about 500,000 barrels per day, according to Reid I’Anson, an energy economist at Kpler, a company tracking seaborne commodities.

Of course, this fact isn’t lost on the Trump Administration, which, according to the FT, has been tracking the movements of tankers linked to China’s biggest state-run oil company amid signs that the ships are helping to bring in Iranian crude.

China National Petroleum Corp, via its subsidiary, the Bank of Kunlun, has, in recent months, employed a fleet of tankers to move oil from Iran to China.

And an NYT visualization of tanker traffic shows the route some of these tankers take while moving oil from Iran to China and elsewhere in the region.

Fix for a slowing India: Home, car loans for you in just 59 minutes

Fix for a slowing India: Home, car loans for you in just 59 minutesThe new retail loan regime was deliberated upon at a meeting between banks and Nirmala Sitharaman.

In Kotak’s bank plan, a bill that spooked many

In Kotak’s bank plan, a bill that spooked manyThe banker proposed changes to PSBs, including reducing the number of state-run lenders to five.

8 mistakes to avoid while filing your tax forms

8 mistakes to avoid while filing your tax formsThe deadline to file income tax returns has been extended to August 31, 2019.

BookWatch: Our national parks face a funding crisis — and we may need to temporarily close some

The National Park Service has a $12 billion maintenance backlog.

Mark Hulbert: This act of Congress could save the stock market from steeper losses

Almost all of the Dow’s gains have come when Congress is in recess, writes Mark Hulbert.

The Conversation: A neuroscientist explains how politicians and the media use fear to make us hate without thinking

There is a longstanding history of employing the fear of “the others,” turning humans into illogical ruthless weapons, in service to an ideology. Fear is a very strong tool that can blur humans’ logic and change their behavior, a neuroscientist explains.