March 18th, 2015

Daily Market Commentary

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

  • Wholesale Sales in Canada were reportedly down 3.1% in January in month-over-month terms, a drop that exceeded expectations.
  • MBA Mortgage Applications in the U.S. were reportedly down 3.9%.
  • Construction Output in the Eurozone was reportedly up 1.9% and 3% in month-over-month and year-over-year terms, respectively.

Commodities:

  • Gold traded near a three-month low as assets in funds backed by the precious metal dropped.
  • Oil is poised to return to a bear market amid a seven-day slump to the lowest price in six years as record U.S. stockpiles worsen a global supply glut.
  • Copper fell for a third day as property prices dropped in China.

 

Canada:

  • Talisman Energy Inc., the Canadian energy company being acquired by Spain’s Repsol SA, is cutting as much as 15 percent of its head office workforce as it reduces activity to contend with a collapse of crude prices.
  • Canadian energy bonds are beating global peers as producers take dramatic steps to shore up their finances in the midst of an oil price crash. U.S. dollar-denominated, investment-grade debt from the oil and natural gas industry in Canada is returning the most of any country as companies cut thousands of jobs, reduce spending by billions of dollars and raise capital in the equity market to weather the rout.
  • BMO kicked off the next round of mortgage-lending competition, announcing Tuesday that it was lowering its five-year, fixed-rate mortgage to 2.79% from 2.99%.
  • Bombardier stuck an agreement to sell up to 40 CSeries aircraft to a new Malaysian airline that would be the CSeries’ first operator in the Asia-pacific region.

United States

  • Oracle Corp. reported fiscal third-quarter sales that missed analysts’ estimates, hurt by a rise in the U.S. dollar and weak corporate demand for cloud software.
  • Adobe Systems Inc. shares fell late Tuesday after the company reported lower-than-expected subscription growth for its Creative Cloud service and forecast second-quarter earnings and revenue below analysts’ estimates.
  • Apple is in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of TV networks this fall, according to people familiar with the matter.

International:

  • European stocks, U.S. Futures were little changed and Asian Stocks Rose before a Federal Reserve policy decision.
  • BMW AG indicated that earnings growth will slow this year because of aging models and high spending on new technologies to fend off rivals.
  • Standard Chartered Plc rose the most in two weeks as analysts at Barclays Plc and Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. upgraded the bank, citing Bill Winters’s hiring as chief executive officer and a diminishing need to raise capital.
  • Tencent Holdings Ltd. posted a 50 percent jump in profit as it reaps higher revenue from more than 1 billion users of its WeChat and QQ messaging services.

*All information is taken from Bloomberg, unless otherwise noted.