Written by Gary
Ten-year yield rebounds from lows of day, climb back above 1.5%. (SPY +0.7%) Calm returns, futures rebound as yields drop after historic pounding.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
North and South American markets are mixed. The S&P 500 is higher by 0.27%, while the IPC is leading the Bovespa lower. They are down 1.39% and 0.98% respectively. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Reuters Poll: Bankers See Steady Rise In Oil PricesBrent crude will average $59.07 per barrel this year, according to a Reuters survey of analysts. This is up from last months consensus on an average of $54.47 a barrel, reflecting growing optimism about the immediate future of the worlds most traded commodity. Travel and leisure activity look set to catch up to buoyant manufacturing activity due to the mix of stimulus, confidence, vaccines, and more targeted pandemic measures, one of the survey respondents, Norbert Ruecker from Swiss Julius Baer, told Reuters. The combination | |
U.S. Strikes Iran-Related Targets In SyriaThe United States carried out airstrikes against facilities that, according to the Pentagon, belong to Iran-backed militia in Syria, Reuters reported, noting these were limited in scope. At President (Joe) Bidens direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria,said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby as quoted by Reuters. One U.S. official told Reuters that Biden was presented with several options for a response and | |
Texas Freeze Led To Second-Highest Natural Gas Withdrawal EverThe extreme winter weather last week resulted in the second-largest withdrawal of natural gas from storage in the U.S. as demand spiked, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Friday. In the week to February 19, natural gas stocks fell by 338 billion cubic feet (Bcf), nearly three times the average withdrawal for the middle of February, the EIA said in its Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report on Thursday. Last weeks withdrawal exceeded the historical five-year average net withdrawals for the week by 218 Bcf, and was just 21 Bcf | |
Renewable Energy Advocate Granholm Confirmed For Top Energy PostRenewable energy ally and fossil fuel foe Jennifer Granholm was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday to lead the Department of Energy by a 64/35 vote. The former Governor of Michigan will serve as Bidens Secretary of Energy and will no doubt back Bidens play to support his green agenda, which eyes a shift to clean energy in the United States by 2050. Granholm has opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, which President Biden wasted no time in canceling. She also opposed the Dakota Access pipeline, which had to bite and claw its | |
China’s Oil Reserves Near LimitChina’s crude oil reserves have reached a level equal to 100 days of imports, Bloomberg has reported, citing unnamed sources in the know, which is near the country’s storage capacity limits. The amount includes both strategic and commercial inventories, the Bloomberg source said. Data compiled by oil data analytics company OilX (that is powered by local insights from SIA Energy) shows Chinese storage at close to 1.1 billion barrels and has been growing again after a decline in December 2020, with massive imports during February 2021, OilX chief | |
How High Can Oil Really Go?Oil price revisions started cautiously: some banks saw Brent crude averaging $65 a barrel this year, and others, of a bolder nature, predicted that the oil benchmark could climb to $65 a barrel. Just a couple of months ago, these forecasts sounded pretty optimistic for the environment, given the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, the continuing excess supply of oil, and reports of coronavirus variants emerging in different parts of the world, threatening new infection waves. Now, banks and traders are talking about Brent at $100 a barrel. Of course, | |
As store owners sign more short-term leases, landlords are taking a risky bet on the future of retailRoughly 1.5 billion square feet of retail space leased in the U.S. is set to expire this year, according to CoStar Group, or about 14% of the retail market. | |
Biden administration to tap private companies, business groups for help in Covid fightThe White House, with its new business partners, will urge more companies to get involved in the national vaccine rollout and overall response to Covid-19. | |
Israeli data suggest mass vaccinations led to drop in severe Covid cases, CDC study finds“Taken together, these results suggest reduced rates of severe COVID-19 following vaccination,” the researchers wrote. | |
Etsy CEO hopes to build more e-commerce market share no matter what happens with CovidEtsy CEO Josh Silverman told CNBC he hopes the online marketplace can outpace the growth of e-commerce overall, adding to its strong pandemic performance. | |
5 things to know before key FDA panel votes on J&J’s single-shot Covid vaccine todayA key FDA panel is to vote on whether to recommend J&J’s Covid vaccine for emergency use, which would help pave the way for a third vaccine in the U.S. | |
More travel hotspots are opening to people who work from homeFirst it was Barbados and Estonia, now it’s the Bahamas, Croatia, Dubai and Madeira. See the newest places where digital nomads can live and work abroad. | |
Watch live: Biden Covid team holds press briefing as U.S. daily cases begin to level offPresident Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response team will hold a press briefing Friday where officials plan to announce a new partnership with top business groups. | |
Nikola admits ousted chairman misled investors as legal costs mountThe fees are part of increased legal expenses of $27.5 million primarily related to regulatory/legal matters in connection to fraud claims by a short seller. | |
Beyond Meat strikes deals with McDonald’s, Yum but shares fall on wider quarterly lossBeyond Meat has struck deals with fast-food giants McDonald’s and Yum Brands. | |
Chinese electric car start-up Li Auto expects it will sell fewer cars than Nio has been deliveringLi Auto said late Thursday it expected to deliver between 10,500 and 11,500 cars in the first quarter of the year, or fewer than 4,000 vehicles a month. | |
Airline stocks are the most overbought they’ve been in years, chart analyst says as travel plays tumbleThe NYSE Arca Airline Index has reached relative strength levels not seen since 2016, which could set up for a pullback, Miller Tabak’s Matt Maley warns. | |
5 things to know before the stock market opens FridayU.S. stock futures were choppy as tech stocks bounced from Thursday’s rout that dragged the Nasdaq down 3.5% | |
Schumer Mulls Penalty For Big Businesses That Don’t Pay $15 Minimum WageSchumer Mulls Penalty For Big Businesses That Don’t Pay $15 Minimum Wage As top Democrats defy their own Senate parliamentarian and forge ahead with a $15 minimum wage provision in the upcoming $1.9 trillion stimulus package – a provision which may kill the entire package thanks to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and others, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is weighing a provision which would penalize big companies that don’t pay workers at least $15 an hour, according to Bloomberg, citing a Democratic aide.
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“America Is Back!?” Biden Is 3rd Successive President To Bomb Syria – Estimated 22 Killed“America Is Back!?” Biden Is 3rd Successive President To Bomb Syria – Estimated 22 Killed “America is back!”…Joe Biden’s mantra has been particularly on the foreign policy front since taking office. Giving the public and the world a small taste of what this will mean in terms of practical action, he’s ordered the first military strike of his presidency a mere little over one month after being inaugurated, becoming the third successive US president to bomb Syria as we covered last night. Noting that the US has now been bombing Syria since 2014 (with a full occupation of a large northeast section of the country to boot), journalist Michael Tracy points out, “These days you don’t truly Become President until you bomb Syria based on questionable intelligence.”
D.C. Hawks and interventionists immediately cheered on Biden’s actions, which as usual didn’t even so much as come with Congressional notification, much less a vote to bomb a sovereign country, as the | |
Texas Desperate For Out-Of-State Plumbers Amid Broken Water Pipe ChaosÂTexas Desperate For Out-Of-State Plumbers Amid Broken Water Pipe Chaos Since the deep freeze and two winter storms rolled through Texas earlier this month, disrupting power grids and knocking out power and heat to millions, homeowners and businesses have been swamped with broken pipes with the urgent need for plumbers. The Arctic blast swept through the state cut power to millions of customers, with estimates of 15 million people had no electricity for days as temperatures were well below freezing. Across much of the state, some homes and businesses were not properly winterized for cold weather, experienced broken water pipes and values that caused immense damage. Accuweather estimated last week that total damage and economic loss for the Lone Star state could be billions of dollars. At the tail end of the crisis when power was being restored, around last Thursday, we showed readers how internet search trends for “pipe burst” erupted across the state. | |
Recipe For A ‘Gong Show’Recipe For A ‘Gong Show’ Authored by Charlie McElligott via Nomura, Bonds calm overnight, stabilizing from yday afternoon’s stunning VaR-event in Rates / USTs (particularly the belly, yikes), peaking following the 7Y auction bloodbath stress point (tailing by almost 5bps!) as Butterflys then exploded higher in unprecented 1d move fashion (indicative of RV / leveraged stop-outs), then evidencing itself further in accelerated deleveraging across œreflation faves (longs in steepeners and TIPS BEs getting slammed / monetized with violence) ¦all while the MBS bleed continued its ugly recent one-way trade wider, and adding to further convexity hedging œnegative feedback loop flows in the process (TY 1m 25delta P/C skew exploded to highs since 2013) We had spoken in the note for a long while now about tail hedgers who for months have been moving away from their 2020 play of œbear-steepeners,  which were the obvious eventual beneficiaries of the œrenormalization reflation / blue wave-lite enhanced fiscal stimulus and govt spending largesse convergence, likely then œshocking-out legacy lazy-longs in the œEverything Duration trade “i.e. the long-end sells off the most on enhanced œgrowth- and inflation- expectations But since late last year / start 2021, what instead were tail funds moving into? We explained that they had more recently been loading into œbear-flatteners,  with instead the FRONT-END / INTERMEDIATE SPACE then the most likely repricing points and coming un-pinned from policy adjustm … | |
Amanda Staveley loses High Court fight with Barclays over damagesA businesswoman who sued Barclays for hundreds of millions loses court case, but judge accuses bank of “deceit”. | |
British Airways owner IAG calls for digital health passesIAG, which owns British Airways and Iberia, makes a record loss after the pandemic grounds flights. | |
Budget 2021: ‘My benefits top-up is a lifeline – don’t take it away’A benefits top-up to help the poor survive lockdown is due to end – unless it is extended at the Budget. | |
Bond sale rescued by India dealers as rout sweeps across globeUnderwriters bought about 20% of the 240 billion rupees ($3.3 billion) of bonds on offer at a weekly sale, the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement Friday. | |
How US bonds triggered rupee rout on FridayThe local unit lost nearly 1.5 percent, the sharpest drop in value against the dollar since March 23, the day when New Delhi imposed a nationwide lockdown last year to prevent the virus from spreading. | |
Will the 2021 earnings bonanza really happen?According to Bloomberg Intelligence, analysts expect a whopping 23.2% increase in earnings per share among S&P 500 companies, up from 22.3% at the start of the year. | |
January 2021 Real Income Grew Due To StimulusWritten by Steven Hansen The data continues to be affected by the pandemic. Expenditures improved month-over-month (but is in contraction year-over-year) whilst income improved month-over-month mostly due to the stimulus payments. | |
NewsWatch: GameStop stock on track for 200% weekly gain, only its second best week everGameStop Corp.’s stock appeared relaxed in early morning trading Friday compared with recent days but shares are still on track for their second best week of what has been a tumultuous year. | |
The Wall Street Journal: New York City schools Chancellor Richard Carranza to leave post mid-MarchNew York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza will leave his post in March as education officials work to reopen some public schools that have remained closed for most of the past year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. | |
Tax Guy: Disaster tax-relief measures in the latest pandemic aid bill could help people impacted by the South’s deep freezeYou or your business may qualify for disaster tax-relief provisions included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. |
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