Written by Gary
Stocks making the biggest moves: Moderna, Cigna, Penn National, Wayfair (SPY +0.2%). Chinas industrial slowdown could kill the commodity rally.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
European markets are mixed. The DAX is higher by 0.06%, while the CAC 40 is leading the FTSE 100 lower. They are down 0.43% and 0.07% respectively. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Exxons Falling Production Is Highly Bullish For Oil PricesLast week, ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) reported Q 2 2021 earnings in one of Big Oil’s most anticipated scorecards this earnings season. The United States’ largest oil and gas company posted stellar earnings that proved that the worst for the U.S. shale industry might finally be in the rearview mirror. Exxon’s Q2 earnings swung to a $4.7B profit from a loss of $1.1B in the year-earlier quarter while revenues more than doubled to $67.7B (+107.7% Y/Y), with both metrics exceeding Wall Street’s expectations. Exxon said that its impressive earnings were driven | |
How France Secured Major Oil And Gas Projects In IraqEven more so than Iran, Iraq remains the greatest relatively underdeveloped oil (and gas) frontier in the Middle East. It is little wonder, then, that it has been and remains the focus of an ongoing power struggle between the U.S. and its allies on the one side and China and Russia (via Iran) on the other. In all of these central Middle Eastern tussles, especially involving Iraq and Iran, France has liked to see itself in the role of the honest broker, not especially aligned to either side, as was notably demonstrated by its attempts | |
Has The Oil Market Learned To Live With Covid?After a few uncertain months, as OPEC oil cuts continued and Covid restrictions came back into place, oil demand for 2021 finally seems stable, with price and demand increases set to continue. As the Delta variant became more prominent in July, initially in India and the U.K. and then gradually across the rest of the globe, many countries were forced back into lockdown or experienced other restrictions to work and movement. This led several experts to speculate that oil and gas demand would inevitably be driven down once again in the face | |
Chinas Industrial Slowdown Could Kill The Commodity RallyOne of the biggest drivers of the surge in metals prices this year, the worlds top commodity consumer China, is showing signs of a slowdown in demand, which could drag down copper and iron ore prices for the rest of the year after a blistering rally in the first half. Chinese factory activity growth slowed down to the smallest in 15 months, imports of copper and iron ore are also slowing down amid surging prices and curbs in Chinas steel manufacturing, while authorities are releasing metals stocks from reserves to cool rallying | |
Spanish Oil Major Repsol May Resume Oil Exploration In LibyaSpains Repsol is willing to resume oil exploration activities in Libya in light of the improved security situation in the African OPEC member, Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Wednesday after a meeting between Repsol representatives and NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla in Tripoli. Repsol is a joint venture partner in the company Akakus Oilalong with NOC, Frances TotalEnergies, Norways Equinor, and Austrias OMVwhich operates the largest oilfield in Libya, Sharara, with a capacity to pump | |
Big Oil Unjustly Under Fire For Dirty HydrogenEveryones talking about hydrogen, the magical clean energy that will propel us into a future beyond oil and gas. But is this all just big oil spinning a tale to appease international agencies and activists as pressure to make the shift to renewables mounts? Is the current hydrogen boom really all it’s set out to be or is it another case of greenwashing? Several countries from around the world have put hydrogen at the top of their energy strategies for the next decade, as they strike the balance between continued oil and gas production | |
Astra targeting late August for first launch since going public, carrying Space Force satellitePublicly traded rocket builder Astra will go for its first launch of the year later this month, planning to transport a Pentagon payload to orbit. | |
Pete Buttigieg says he doesn’t know why Elon Musk’s Tesla was snubbed from Biden’s clean-car showcaseElon Musk tweeted overnight, “Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited” to Biden’s clean-car event at the White House alongside Ford, GM and UAW. | |
Germany’s winter Covid strategy could see unvaccinated people face tougher restrictionsIt comes as German authorities remain wary of the potential impact of the delta Covid-19 variant at a time when many pandemic restrictions have been dropped. | |
Lithia Motors is quietly taking on AutoNation to become the country’s top auto retailerLithia’s stock is up more than 200% in the past two years, including a twofold increase to about $375 a share since its five-year growth plan was announced. | |
Stocks making the biggest moves: Moderna, Cigna, Penn National, Wayfair and othersThese are the stocks posting the largest moves before the bell. | |
Delta variant will lead to increase in breakthrough Covid infections among vaccinated, Moderna saysThe highly contagious delta variant will lead to an increase in breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated as people begin moving indoors, Moderna said. | |
Wayfair shares rise after earnings top estimates and sales stay above pre-pandemic levelsOnline furniture retailer Wayfair said active customers grew to 31.1 million, a nearly 20% year-over-year increase. | |
Moderna says its Covid vaccine booster produced ‘robust’ immune response against deltaModerna said its Covid-19 vaccine booster shot produced a “robust” antibody response against the highly contagious delta variant. | |
DraftKings partners with NFL data provider Genius Sports to fuel sports betsDraftKings will receive exclusive sportsbook data from Genius Sports and access to its live feeds to help establish betting lines. | |
Skates, skateboards and scooters help fuel 19% bump in first half toy salesSales of skateboards and scooters propelled U.S. toy sales to $11 billion during the first half of 2021, a 19% increase from 2020, the NPD Group said Thursday. | |
Biden pushes for electric vehicles to make up 40% or more of U.S. auto sales by 2030The new target is expected to be supported by auto companies such as General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis. | |
Adidas raises outlook despite falling sales in China as boycott there continuesThe German sportswear giant increased its outlook for the year, despite a drop in sales in Greater China. | |
Ethereum Slides After Completing ‘London’ Hard-Fork On Path To “Ultrasound Money”Ethereum Slides After Completing ‘London’ Hard-Fork On Path To “Ultrasound Money” The highly-anticipated ‘London’ upgrade has finally happened on the Ethereum network as ETH arguably moves closer to becoming a deflationary asset. As Cointelegraph reports, the London hard fork arrived almost on schedule at around 0833ET this morning at block height 12,965,000, ushering in the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. After yesterday’s surge, the price of ETH is sliding after the fork… Source: Bloomberg UPDATE: Ethereum is bouncing back… | |
Landlords, Real Estate Groups Ask Judge To Block CDC’s New Eviction MoratoriumLandlords, Real Estate Groups Ask Judge To Block CDC’s New Eviction Moratorium Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times, A group of real estate entities on Wednesday night issued a legal challenge in a D.C. district court to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new eviction moratorium. Landlords, real-estate companies, and property-management groups, including the Alabama Association of Realtors and its counterpart in Georgia, argued in their emergency motion that the latest eviction order (pdf) issued by the Biden administration’s CDC, exceeds the agency’s powers, according to a statement from the National Association of Realtors. The groups requested Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to halt the new protections, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent order that the CDC could not extend the moratorium without new legislation. < … | |
Continuing Claims Plunge, But Almost 13 Million Americans Remain On The DoleContinuing Claims Plunge, But Almost 13 Million Americans Remain On The Dole Initial jobless claims has largely stagnated for the last few weeks and remains so, printing 385k this week (still amost double the ‘normal’ pre-lockdown levels)… Source: Bloomberg The good news is that Continuing Claims plunged last week, back below 3 million for the first time since the lockdowns began…. Source: Bloomberg Indiana and Alabama saw the biggest increases initial claims while Pennsylvania and Texas saw the … | |
Zymergen Rallies 8% Pre-Market After Cathie Wood Buys 2.47 Million SharesZymergen Rallies 8% Pre-Market After Cathie Wood Buys 2.47 Million Shares Cathie Wood raised eyebrows days ago when, in accordance with her “strategy” to simply buy any stock getting media coverage that falls precipitously, she bought over $45 million in shares of new IPO Robinhood. Today, Wood is laughing all the way to the bank after Robinhood staged a Reddit rally/gamma squeeze on Wednesday, driving shares to $70 from its IPO price of $38, where the stock had trouble maintaining a bid earlier this week. Despite insiders filling to sell nearly 100 million Robinhood shares on Thursday morning, the stock was still around $60, rewarding Wood’s “outside the box” thinking to buy the dip with a healthy profit. And that wasn’t the only time Wood employed her “strategy” of buying whatever when there’s blood in the streets. Zymergen is rallying 7% in the pre-market session on Thursday after it was announced that Wood’s Ark Investment Management funds bought around 2.47 million shares, according to Bloomberg. Zymergen plunged 76% on Wednesday after the company announced it wouldn’t generate product revenue unti … | |
UK interest rates held despite warning inflation to hit 4%Bank of England says inflation’s heading for 4% this year, but interest rates are held at 0.1%. | |
Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley to hand reins to future son-in-lawThe tycoon, whose empire also includes House of Fraser and Evans Cycles, is set to hand power to his future son-in-law. | |
Mike Ashley: Who is the founder of Sports Direct?Profile of Sports Direct founder and Newcastle United billionaire owner Mike Ashley. | |
Smallcap security provider emerges a big beneficiary of India unlockingThe rapid surge in these stocks has alarmed some analysts. They think they have surged too much too fast and investors should turn cautious now. Yet, there are some stocks which seem to have some steam left. | |
Zomato valuation enigma! The crowd values it between 0 & Rs 570A debate over Zomato’s true valuation has divided not just Dalal Street, but also many prominent voices from across the world. Some say there is no sense in investing in such a company, while others believe it will be a multibagger. | |
Prolonged QE intensifies govt fiscal risks to future rate hikes: Raghuram RajanIn a recent article, Rajan flagged the potential pain that global financial markets might see when central banks turn off the easy money tap. The world over, government debt is rising exponentially and more worryingly, an increasing amount of the debt maturity profile is skewed through issuance of longer-dated securities. | |
: What does earning $62,000 a year buy you in America? Not great access to health care, new report concludesA new report from the Commonwealth Fund looks at salary and access to health care in 11 countries. | |
The Moneyist: ‘Who knows if I’ll live until retirement?’ I have $10K in credit-card debt and $4.5K in student loans. Should I tap my $24K 401(k)?‘Who knows how much my quality of life could improve by getting rid of this debt?’ | |
: Is it too late to score a hotel deal this summer? Not if you follow these surefire tipsRoom rates have risen to record levels, but there are plenty of ways to save. |
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