Thursday, October 09, 2014

Friday Watch

Evening Headlines 
Bloomberg:
  • Kurdish Ammo Runs Low in Kobani as Turkey Controls Exit. Kurds defending Kobani risk running out of ammunition as Islamic State surrounds the town and Turkey controls their only outlet, according to a Kurdish lawmaker in Turkey and observers of the fighting in Syria. While Islamic State exploits supply lines through Syria to Iraq, where they’ve seized U.S.-made weaponry abandoned by the Iraqi army, Kobani’s Kurds are encircled on three sides with their backs pressed up against Turkey’s border. That leaves them largely dependent for resupply on a country that brands them as terrorists, defining them as a threat equal to that posed by the Islamist extremists they’re fighting.
  • Gaping Portugal Bid-Ask Spread Keeps Investors Wary: Euro Credit. Glance at Portugal’s government bond yields and you’d think the securities should’ve been lifted to investment grade months ago. Dig below the surface, and market conditions tell you it’s a case of buyer beware. The debt outperformed that of regional peers this month as analysts at Danske Bank A/S predict the nation’s junk status will be removed by Fitch Ratings today. Yet with the gap between offers to buy and sell the bonds 15 times bigger than for Germany, Lombard Odier Investment Managers and Pacific Investment Management Co. are cautious. Even with Portugal’s yields more attractive than Germany’s, the investors are unsure about finding enough buyers when prices drop.
  • Draghi Clashes With Schaeuble Over Steps for Europe. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble differed over what further steps to take if the euro-area economy keeps weakening as the region came under renewed foreign pressure to revive growth. As the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in Washington began, Draghi pledged anew to loosen monetary policy more if needed and called on those governments with the room to ease fiscal policy to do so. By contrast, Schaeuble warned against U.S.-style quantitative easing and urged continued budgetary discipline.
  • Asian Stocks Extend Selloff on Europe as Oil Extends Drop. Asian stocks slid, extending a global equity rout amid concern Europe’s slowdown will hobble the world economy and as Hong Kong’s government scrapped talks with protesters. The yen held gains as copper fell and crude oil continued its slump. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index sank 1 percent by 9:48 a.m. in Tokyo, set for its lowest close since May as Japan’s Topix index tumbled 1.5 percent.
  • Copper Leads Metals Lower Amid Signs of European Slowdown. “The biggest economy in Europe is going down,” said David Lennox, a resource analyst at Fat Prophets. “When you see the weakness, it reinforces that pessimism.” Copper for delivery in three months on the LME was down 1 percent at $6,652.75 a metric ton at 10 a.m. in Hong Kong. In New York, the December contract dropped 0.7 percent to $3.0095 a pound, while in Shanghai metal for the same month fell 0.9 percent to 47,340 yuan ($7,718) a ton. 
  • Gold Heads for Biggest Weekly Jump Since June on Slowdown Signs. Gold is 2.8 percent higher this week, set for the biggest such advance since the period to June 20, and a fifth day of gains today would be the longest run since February. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is poised to halt a seven-week rally as investors assessed the timing of increases in U.S. interest rates, which the Fed has pledged to hold near zero for a “considerable time.”
  • VIX Shoots to Eight-Month High in Selloff as Bears Reclaim Edge. Squalls turned into stock market storms this week as concerns about the global economy and Federal Reserve send day-to-day swings to the widest in eight months.
Wall Street Journal:
  • Cuba Stands at Forefront of Ebola Battle in Africa. Island Nation Outpaces Larger Countries in Sending Medical Staff; Unlikely Partner for U.S. With risks growing that Ebola could flare on foreign shores, the U.S. is calling for nations to dispatch doctors and nurses to West Africa, where thousands of lives are on the line. Few have heeded the call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba. In the weeks since U.S. President Barack Obama sent the first of nearly 4,000 troops to West Africa, the struggle to quell Ebola has created odd bedfellows. Perhaps none is quite so odd as the sight of Cuban doctors joining forces with the U.S. military to combat Ebola...
  • Obama Weighs Options to Close Guantanamo. Any Move to Override Congressional Ban on Bringing Detainees to U.S. Would Spark Fight.
  • Turkey Sits Out Battle in Syrian Border City. Ankara Chooses Not to Intervene in Fight Between Islamic State, Kurdish Militia. Turkey’s unwillingness to intervene in the battle over a predominantly Kurdish Syrian city on its border has earned the country harsh criticism from Washington, exposing a dangerous rift over how the two allies want to tackle Islamic State’s rise. After more than three weeks of fighting for Kobani and its surroundings, the extremist group edged closer to seizing the city from Syrian Kurdish militia fighters on Thursday. By nighttime, city officials said the militants had managed to gain control of about a quarter of...
  • The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown. Mounting evidence suggests that basic assumptions about climate change are mistaken: The numbers don’t add up.

Fox News:
  • North Korea’s Kim Jong-un’s absence fuels speculation about health, coup. North Korea's mysterious leader Kim Jong-un has not been seen in public for 34 days, sparking a wide range of speculation -- including that the head of one of the world's most secretive countries is ailing or has been removed in a secret coup. Kim, who was last seen in public attending a concert on Sept. 3., had been seen earlier walking with a limp.
MarketWatch.com:
  • Ebola fear causes hazmat-suit maker’s biggest one-day jump. Lakeland LAKE, +52.50% surged nearly 53% to close at $17.72 on very heavy volume Thursday. Shares hit an intraday high of $19.79, a level not seen since July 2004. More than 47 million shares changed hands on the session, more than four times its previous record volume high.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
  • Fed's Williams: Can't wait too long to raise ratesA top Federal Reserve official warned on Thursday that the U.S. economy could overheat if the central bank waits too long to raise interest rates. John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, predicted that inflation and employment will be back to normal levels by 2016, which he said suggests that rates must start rising mid-2015.
  • Fears grow in United States over Ebola's spread outside West Africa. Fears are growing in the United States about Ebola with about 200 airline cabin cleaners walking off the job in New York and some lawmakers demanding the government ban travelers from the West African countries hit hardest by the virus. "The nation is frightened, and people are frightened of this disease," the U.S. cabinet secretary for health, Sylvia Burwell, said on Thursday, a day after the death in Texas of the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Financial Times:
  • Fears of housing crash in China raise global alarm. Fears of a housing market crash are weighing on forecasts for global growth. But this time it is China, not the US, which is causing concern in a sign of the shift under way in the world economy. Ask economists what factors could hamper global growth this year and the majority will reel off a list that includes a hard landing for the Chinese economy.
Telegraph:
Xinhua:
  • China Supreme Court Tightens Controls Over Internet. Supreme People's Court releases document urging courts to order network service providers to provide personal data of users suspected of rights violations, including real names, contract info, IP addresses. Information can be used by investigators, plaintiffs.
Shanghai Securities News:
  • Beijing Won't Likely Remove Home Purchase Curbs. Beijing won't likely remove home purchase restrictions as the city's property market hasn't cooled down noticeably, citing researchers with the nation's housing ministry.
Evening Recommendations
  • None of note
Night Trading
  • Asian equity indices are -1.25% to -.75% on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 116.5 +1.5 basis points.
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 69.25 -.25 basis point.
  • FTSE-100 futures -1.14%.
  • S&P 500 futures -.17%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures  -.34%.
Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note

Company/Estimate
  • (FAST)/.45
  • (PGR)/.44 
  • (INFY)/.52
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
  • The Import Price Index for September is estimated to fall -.7% versus a -.9% decline in August.
Upcoming Splits
  • None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The Fed's Lacker speaking, Fed's George speaking, Fed's Plosser speaking, Canadian unemployment report and the USDA's WASDE report could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are lower, weighed down by industrial and commodity shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly lower and to maintain losses into the afternoon. The Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the day.

No comments: