October, 11th 2016

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

 

  • European stocks were little changed as investors speculated on a Federal Reserve rate increase this year, while luxury shares advanced.
  • U.S. stock-index futures declined amid growing investor’s speculation that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year, undermining demand for riskier assets.
  • South Africa’s rand tumbled after a report that the nation’s finance minister will be charged with fraud.

 

Commodities:

 

  • Metals: Gold: 1255.15 (-$4.50, -0.36%), Silver: 17.53 (-$0.11, -0.62%); Copper: 2.1835 (-0.64%); Zinc: 1.0299 (-2.51%)
  • Energy: Crude: 50.93 (-0.82%); Brent: 52.73 (-0.77%); Nat Gas: 3.27 (-0.21%)
  • Oil fell from a 15-month high amid uncertainty over whether Russia would join an OPEC deal to curb supply.
  • Gold futures rebounded from the biggest weekly drop in more than three years as investors jumped into exchange-traded funds backed by the metal, lifting global holdings to the highest since 2013.

 

Canada:

  • Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV reached a tentative agreement with workers in Canada whose union president said will include more than C$400 million ($300 million) in total investment.
  • Canadian banks and mortgage insurers are rallying against new government housing rules that they say will lead to higher mortgage rates, hurt small real estate markets and drive borrowers toward unregulated lenders. The flash point for the big banks, which hold their regular meetings with the finance department this week, is the risk sharing proposal that would require the industry to shoulder a burden of mortgage defaults.

United States:

 

  • Venture capital firm Greylock Partners said it raised a new fund with commitments of $1 billion, bringing total assets under management to $3.5 billion. Greylock said the fund will focus on early stage software-driven consumer and enterprise companies, in line with its other investments.
  • The Chicago Fed’s Evans said overnight that he won’t be surprised by a December hike. Futures are recently pricing in as much as a 60% chance of a December hike.
  • Chevron Corp., the U.S. oil producer divesting assets to counter an energy-price slump, is seeking about $2 billion from a sale of natural gas assets in Bangladesh

 

International:

 

  • Samsung Electronics Co. halted sales of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones and asked consumers to stop using the ones they’ve already purchased, another blow to South Korea’s largest company as it struggles with a crisis over exploding batteries. Shares plunged, cutting $17 billion from its market value.
  • Jera Co., a venture between two of Japan’s biggest power utilities, agreed to acquire EDF Trading Ltd.’s coal-trading business as part of a push to lower fuel costs and expand its overseas business.
  • China’s financial regulators plan to further tighten control on funds flowing into the property market in violation of current rules, according to people familiar with the matter. Authorities including the central bank, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission aim to tighten control on speculative real-estate investments and money involved in land transactions.
  • BP Plc has abandoned oil exploration in the offshore Great Australian Bight, five years after it began searching for resources in one of the world’s last frontier regions and before it could drill a single well. The decision to step away from the project off the country’s southern coast follows a review of the company’s upstream strategy and wasn’t influenced by regulatory delays.
  • After joining the IMF’s fund’s reserves basket on Oct. 1, the yuan has gone in one direction: down.
  • Bank of Shanghai Co. plans to raise 10.7 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in its initial public offering in the city to boost capital. The Shanghai lender is one of a wave of smaller banks raising money to fund expansion as regulators close loopholes that allowed so-called shadow lending without extra capital and provisions.
  • S&P Global Ratings said China’s banks may need to raise as much 11.3 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) of fresh capital from 2020 because of troubled credit, should a corporate debt binge fail to slow.
  • Takata Corp. fell the most in three weeks in Tokyo trading after it was said to be considering bankruptcy protection in the U.S. The air-bag maker said no decision has been made.
  • A Marathon Petroleum Corp. unit sued BP Plc subsidiaries over claims they left parts of BP’s former Texas City refinery in shoddy condition and lied about unfinished repairs and inspections when selling the complex to Marathon. Marathon seeks unspecified damages to cover the multimillion-dollar cost of completing plant-wide safety inspections, repairs and upgrades BP allegedly promised to finish before the sale.

 

 

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