Americas – Equities Post Labour Pains

US markets returned from the Labour Day weekend to prop up equities once again – Nasdaq futures gaining 1.08% during the Asian session after losing 4.11% in New York throughout the day.

The S&P500 was down 2.78% and the Russel 200 -1.63%, while futures optimism could be due to Presidential contender Biden reported intention to maintain some Trump tariffs in place.

The NFIB Research Foundation delivered a 2-point improvement in small business optimism at 100.2 points for August, but consumer credit for July missed the mark at $12.25 bn.

Asia – Aussie confidence up

Asian benchmarks are nearly all in the red this morning, the Shenzhen Composite and Australia’s ASX down 2.21%. The Nikkei has lost a per cent, as the Yen rises marginally.

China’s consumer inflation is slightly down, and producer prices fell for the 7th month in a row, albeit at their slowest pace in 5 months – 2.2% YoY.

Australia’s Westpac Consumer Confidence index shot out of negative territory to an 18% increase in September as July’s home loans increased by 10.7% – considerably better than the expected 3%.

Europe – British integrity under scrutiny

European indices all closed in the red yesterday, Italy’s FTSE losing 1.8% and the FTSE -0.12%.

The Euro gained limited traction following slightly improved trade balanced in Germany and France plus better than expected retail sales in Italy for July – a 7.2% yearly contraction compared to the expected 12.4%.

For the Eurozone, unemployment in Q2 shows a 2.9% contraction, but the zone’s seasonally adjusted Q2 GDP contracted less than expected – 14.7% YoY instead of an even 15.

And the Pound Sterling continues down as the ramifications of welching on Brexit aspects already agreed upon in a no-deal divorce begin to emerge on British integrity.

Commodities – Oil sinking

With both API and EIA’s reports delayed by a day, oil continues to plunge amidst demand concerns – WTI down 0.3% to $36.65 and Brent by 0.18% to $39.71 – narrowing the spread considerably.

Corporate – Tesla crashing

As if the S&P including miss wasn’t enough, yesterday’s stock rout seemed to hurt Tesla more than GM and Ford together – shares shedding 21.06% in a single session.

GM shares were up 7.9% yesterday as Reuters reported that the company will join forces with electric truck start-up Nikola.

AstraZeneca, however, didn’t seem to suffer from the announcement that it was halting COVID drug testing owing to side effects – shares were up 0.82%, thanks to the announcement coming several hours after the London close.

Today, prepare for earnings reports from Aurora Cannabis, Tallow Oil and Eaton, with dividends from Unilever.

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