Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day
(Bloomberg) --
Good morning. Stocks are down in Asia on the 10th anniversary of the start of the global equity bull market. Today we'll get notable data from the U.S. and Europe, and we'll be watching for Brexit updates from Brussels. Here’s what’s moving markets this morning.
U.S. jobs
The market is braced for a slowdown in the robust pace of job creation -- we're looking at a median estimate of 180,000 for February -- though Mohamad El-Erian argues that the indicator we should really be looking at is labor-force participation due to its potential to influence Fed policy. The indicator, which caps a week of mounting global growth woes, comes at 2:30 p.m. CET.
It's on EU
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to tell the European Union on Friday that the fate of a vote on her Brexit deal next week is in its hands. That comes after the EU made a new offer about how to review the backstop to break the impasse, people familiar with the EU side of the talks said. Meanwhile, the EU trade czar is warning of a chaotic Brexit in the event of a no-deal exit. To add insult to injury, she's not confident a deal can be reached in the coming weeks.
Happy Anniversary…
To the U.S. bull market, which has been running since March 9, 2009. Does that mean condolences, then, to those European-only investors who have gotten returns, including dividends, of just 198 percent in dollar terms, compared to the S&P 500's 401 percent? At least Royal Unibrew investors have something to skaal to this weekend: their stock has wildly outperformed in the past 10 years.
Rare sell
Stocks are down in Asia amid renewed concerns about global growth, with U.S. futures declining after weak Chinese trade data. That, of course, follows downgraded ECB forecasts for Europe yesterday, that some officials are said to view as still too optimistic, and that have left the euro near a two-year low. Also not helping: a sell rating from China's largest brokerage on People's Insurance Company Group of China. The recommendation may have been sanctioned by the government, the market mused, causing people to worry that China wants to slow the market rally.
Coming Up...
Before the jobs report, we'll have a slew of indicators, starting with Italian industrial production and, most important, German factory orders -- their unexpected drop last month added to signs that Europe's largest economy was facing a protracted loss in momentum. The market's looking for 0.5 percent growth this time around. There is less optimism for some German manufacturers, however -- Warburg has estimated that earnings at German carmaker BMW would get a hit of more than 10 percent in the case of a so-called hard Brexit.
What We’ve Been Reading
This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours.
- Teflon Teresa? How May keeps surviving the hits
- Dolce & Gabbana's China scandal is still all the rage
- Keep your pjs on: BNY scraps plan to review working from home
- The peril's of Baltic gold
- Scammed at 40,000 feet: Opaque market costs the jet-setting rich
- `Billions' stars say playing bad makes them nicer in real life
- Deadly London knife attacks magnify unsettling times in Britain
--With assistance from Joe Easton.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net
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