October, 28th 2016

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

 

  • The yen is set for its biggest monthly loss since May amid speculation the Bank of Japan will maintain monetary stimulus as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates for the first time since December.
  • Russia left its benchmark interest rate unchanged following last month’s unprecedented pledge by the central bank to maintain borrowing costs through year-end in a bid to tackle inflation.
  • Fed meeting Tuesday-Wednesday Nov. 1st & 2nd

Commodities:

 

  • Metals: Gold: 1265.76 (-$2.64, -0.21%), Silver: 17.58 (-$0.05, -0.28%); Copper: 2.1750 (+0.53%); Zinc: 1.0807 (+0.80%)
  • Energy: Crude: 49.49 (-0.46%); Brent: 50.32 (-0.30%); Nat Gas: 3.04 (-1.08%)
  • U.S. oil is set for the first weekly drop since mid-September as an OPEC committee meets in Vienna on Friday to discuss output quotas for members participating in an agreement to cut production.
  • Gold headed for the biggest monthly drop since May amid rising expectations that U.S. interest rates will increase before the end of the year, with the dollar trading near the highest level in more than seven months.

 

Canada:

 

  • Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is in exclusive talks to acquire CityPoint Tower ($732 million), a London office building.
  • Barrick Gold Corp. is keeping the door open to selling and or looking to form partnerships with regard to its most-prized asset (Veladero mine and its Pascua-Lama project)

United States:

  • It has been confirmed after speculation in the media that General Electric and Baker Hughes are working towards forming a partnership. (GE Investor Communications)
  • GE has been buying shares of takeover target Arcam in the open market.
  • ZTO Express: Chinese delivery company had its IPO yesterday on the NYSE
  • Google beats earnings, company plans to buy back 7 billion in stock. Revenue up 20%, & Ad Revenue up 18.1%. (Financial Post)
  • Amazon misses expectations, stocks falls
  • U.S. authorities are investigating whether middlemen in the $5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market posted fake bids, rigged auctions and gave confidential information to others who then profited from it. The investigation, by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and New York’s Attorney General, is focused on the currency options desks at several interdealer brokers.
  • United Parcel Service Inc. is deepening its bet on international expansion by ordering 14 Boeing Co. 747 jumbo jets with a list value of $5.3 billion. Daily package volume in UPS’s international division has climbed 58 percent in the past decade.

International:

 

  • UBS Group AG said it could be fined and suspended from arranging Hong Kong initial public offerings as the city’s securities regulator moves to punish the Swiss bank for its work on some IPOs.
  • UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti pledged to continue cost cuts after profit at the wealth-management business fell and the securities unit was hurt by a slump in equities trading.
  • Samsung Biologics Co., the pharmaceutical arm of the South Korean conglomerate, priced its $2 billion initial public offering at the high end of a marketed range as it raises funds to ramp up its expansion plans.
  • Amazon.com Inc. has started offering its Prime free-shipping service in China, ratcheting up attempts to compete with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
  • PetroChina Co., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, posted a 77 percent decline in third-quarter profit amid crude’s sustained slump. Net income fell to 1.2 billion yuan ($177 million) in the July-September period.

 

 

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