Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
(Bloomberg) --
Good morning. A Brexit deal seems tantalizingly close yet so far, Donald Trump has been rebuked and Netflix allayed a few concerns. Here’s what’s moving markets.
Complex Issues
U.K. and European negotiators seem on the brink of a Brexit deal, only for each hope to be dashed almost as quickly as it arises. Conflicting messages, denials and clarifications have served to muddy the waters further but the message is that much progress has been made towards finding an accord, albeit with plenty of complicated issues remaining. Even beyond those, there are still plenty of hurdles for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to vault even after something is agreed to with the EU before getting the support of U.K. lawmakers. Brexit has meant many things, but be ready for another day in which it means heart palpitations and whipsawing markets.
Rebuked
U.S. President Donald Trump got a bipartisan rebuke from lawmakers for withdrawing forces from Syria, a decision that paved the way for Turkey’s incursion and created a new front for the president to contend with, alongside impeachment jitters and trade wars. A subsequent meeting with congressional leaders then abruptly broke down. Trump, unsurprisingly, is sticking by the decision and his vice president will be heading to Turkey for talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in order to attempt to defuse some of the tension. Trump, for his part, wrote a letter to Erdogan urging him not to be a “tough guy” or a “fool.”
Stimulus
A quick catch up with what’s been a busy week for central bank chatter and which will continue to be on Thursday, with four European Central Bank policymakers and two folks from the Federal Reserve to speak. On the ECB side, members have been backing up Mario Draghi’s call for governments to complement monetary policy steps with stimulus measures, though not all agree, along with some criticism of U.S. trade policy. At the Fed, at least one policymaker has suggested the bank may have to cut rates again given the risks the economic outlook faces.
International Streaming
Streaming giant Netflix Inc. managed to deliver enough good news on subscriber gains and viewing figures for “Stranger Things” to allay concerns investors have about the increased competition it will soon face from Walt Disney Co. and Apple Inc. The shining star in the number was international growth, which outpaced expectations. In another part of the tech world, however, IBM’s third-quarter revenue missed expectations as the Red Hat Inc. business it bought failed to compensate for weakness elsewhere.
Coming Up...
Asian stocks were in drifting mode after a slight dip in the U.S. caused by soft economic data and European futures are pointing to a mixed-to-flat open. European earnings will really get motoring, with numbers from food and personal-goods giants Nestle and Unilever to digest, plus drinks-maker Pernod Ricard SA and Swedish telecoms equipment group Ericsson. U.K. retail sales data, showing the state of the high street while Brexit negotiations rumble on, will also be released.
What We’ve Been Reading
This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours.
- How to avoid being stranded if your flight is canceled.
- It’s been the second hottest year on record, so far.
- The Wall Street A-listers working on the world’s biggest IPO.
- You need at least $500,000 to make the American 1%.
- How to fix Hong Kong’s economy.
- Under Armour’s getting into the spacesuit business.
- Economic myths peddled at the latest Democratic debate.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net
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