Asia – Lamb celebrates protest ban

Asian benchmarks are mainly up this morning with the exception of the Shanghai Composite (-0.2%) led by the ASX’s 1.22% increase.

The TA35 is up 1.04%, and the Hang Seng, 0.8% as Hong Kong’s Carrie Lamb celebrated yesterday China’s National Day and 3 months of anti-government protest prohibitions.

The Yen remains flat despite less stellar than expected improvements in data overnight, including a 4-tick increase in the Jibun manufacturing PMI and a -11 point non-manufacturing PMI.

The Aussie improved overnight after CommBank produced a 55.4-point manufacturing PMI – a tick down from August.

Europe – London bleeding fin jobs

European indices closed mainly down yesterday in the ½ per cent plus region with Portugal’s PSI20 managing to buck the trend with an 0.84% increase.

The pound added a 1/3% overnight after Reuters quotes an EY consultants report showing over 7500 finance sector jobs having already left the UK ahead of Brexit.

Following Britain’s excellent data yesterday morning, which includes a slightly better than expected 21.5% contraction in Q2 GDP, Germany showed an improvement in September’s unemployment rate to 6.3% and a 3.1% MoM increase in August’s retail sales figure and France a 2.3% MoM increase in consumer spending. Local PPIs disappointed, however, while Italian Consumer inflation fell beyond expectations.

Americas – The post-debate normal

US equities were led higher yesterday by the Dow’s 1.2% increase.

The dollar lost traction overnight after September mortgage applications contracted by 4.8%. On the other hand, pending home sales surprised to the upside with an 8.8% MoM increase, annualized GDP for Q2 came in 3/10 better than expected with a 31.4% contraction, ADP reported a 749K increase in employment figures and core personal consumption contracted by 0.8%.

Commodities – Gold recovering

WTI yesterday added about a dollar 70 after the EIA surprised to the upside with a 1.98 mB contraction in oil stocks. And gold yesterday performed a double bottom, ending – at 1899 – near the top of its 3-day range.

Corporate – Good boys on FB

Facebook ended up 0.042% after announcing an uptick in content related to the neo-fascist Proud Boys group following the group’s presidential plug.

Today expect earnings reports from Bed Bath & Beyond, Pepsi and Constellation Brands, with dividends from FedEx, Nike, ViacomCBX, Textron and Devon Energy.

Events