March 3rd 2015

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

  • MBA Mortgage Applications in the U.S. were reportedly up 0.1%.
  • The ADP Employment figures in the U.S. were reportedly up 212K, below estimates of 220K.

Commodities:

  • Oil held above $50 a barrel as investors weighed Saudi Arabia’s signal that demand is improving against data forecast to show U.S. inventories expanded from a record.
  • Gold traded above a one-week low in London as investors cut holdings in bullion-backed funds to the lowest in a month before U.S. jobs data. Palladium fell for the first time in eight days
  • Falling demand for copper is leading suppliers to stash extra metal in warehouses, pushing inventories tracked by the London Metal Exchange to the biggest increase in a month.

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Canada:

  • Canada’s wind-powered electricity rose 12 percent in 2014 and the country ranked fifth globally in newly installed wind-power capacity for the year, the National Energy Board and the Canadian Wind Energy Association reported.
  • BlackBerry will launch four new devices this year, starting with a new touch-screen phone called BlackBerry Leap. The smartphone maker announced plans for the devices at the Mobile World Congress.

United States

  • U.S. stock-index futures fell, signalling equities will drop a second day, as investors awaited jobs data to help gauge the economic recovery and the likely timeline for a Federal Reserve interest rate increase.
  • Two days before contract talks were scheduled to resume between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and the United Steelworkers’ oil union, the company announced plans to run its second-largest U.S. refinery without union labour.
  • The U.S. shadow-banking system could take at least $11 billion of annual profit away from traditional lenders as competition intensifies over the next five years, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
  • Best Buy unveiled plans to buy back shares for the first time since 2012, as the electronics retailer also posted a better-than-expected surge in profit in its holiday quarter. Still, revenue missed Wall Street expectations on continued weakness in the tablet category.

International:

  • European equities were little changed, with lenders rising while miners fell amid earnings reports.
  • Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc may cut more than two thirds of its investment-bank jobs as part of a plan to shrink the securities unit and focus on the U.K. consumer market, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
  • Asian stocks fell from a six-month high, as telecom companies led losses. Japan’s Topix index retreated from its highest since 2007 as the yen held gains against the dollar.
  • Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan cut interest rates in an unscheduled move days after the government agreed for the first time to give the central bank a legal mandate to target inflation

*All information is taken from Bloomberg, unless otherwise noted.