July 14th 2014

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

  • Industrial production in the Eurozone was reportedly down 1.1% and up 0.5% in month-over-month and year-over-year terms, respectively.
  • Industrial Production in Japan was reportedly up 0.7% and 1% in month-over-month and year-over-year terms, respectively.

Commodities:

  • West Texas Intermediate crude headed toward $100 a barrel for the first time since May amid signs that Libyan output is continuing to increase. Brent crude traded near the lowest price in three months.
  • Gold dropped as some traders deemed an advance to an almost four-month high as excessive and as investors awaited clues on when U.S. policy makers may begin raising interest rates. Silver declined.

Canada:

  • Bond investors are backing Stephen Poloz’s view that a weak economy will keep a lid on inflation, pushing 10-year government bonds to the lowest yield since the Bank of Canada governor took office about a year ago. The benchmark securities due in June 2024 yielded 2.21 percent at the end of last week.
  • TD Bank, RBC, and Scotia Bank have bolstered assets more than five-fold in the past two decades, as the country’s three biggest lenders distance themselves from their smaller peers.

United States:

  • U.S. stock-index futures advanced, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index posted its biggest weekly loss in three months, amid an increase in takeover activity and as investors awaited quarterly results from Citigroup Inc.
  • Whiting Petroleum Corp.’s $3.8billion purchase of Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. will create the dominant crude-oil producer in the richest U.S. shale region as energy explorers seek access to future drilling opportunities. Kodiak stockholders will receive 0.177 of a Whiting share for each Kodiak share they own.
  • Citigroup Inc. and U.S. authorities will announce a $7 billion agreement as soon as today to end probes of the bank’s sales of mortgage-backed bonds.
  • Home Depot Inc., the world’s largest home-improvement chain, will start selling 3-D printers today in stores for the first time, pushing deeper into a market that was once the domain of engineers and hobbyists.

International:

  • European stocks climbed, after the Stoxx Europe 600 Index posted its biggest weekly drop since March, as Shire Plc gained.
  • AbbVie Inc. moved a step closer to buying Shire Plc after the Dublin-based company said it’s willing to back a fifth offer of 31.4 billion pounds ($53.7 billion), which would be the biggest pharmaceutical takeover outside of the U.S. this year.
  • European banks and asset managers plan to sell or restructure 584 billion euros ($795 billion) of riskier real estate as they try to clean up their balance sheets, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. said.
  • Asian stocks rose, with the regional benchmark gauge on course for its first gain in five days, as telecommunications and health-care shares advanced.