March 3rd, 2017

Daily Market Commentary

 

 

 

Economic News:

  • The Markit Services PMI in the US for February was quoted at 53.8, slightly below estimates.
  • The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI for the US was quoted at 57.6, above estimates.
  • Retail Sales in the Eurozone were reportedly down 0.1% and up 1.2% in month-over-month and year-over-year terms, respectively. Both figures were below estimates.

Canada:

  • Profit at Canada’s six biggest banks soared 25 percent to a record C$11 billion ($8.2 billion) collectively in fiscal first quarter, as they left the oil rout behind and benefited from buoyant capital markets to reap gains in trading and wealth management.

United States:

  • Costco Wholesale Corp. fell as much as 5 percent after posting disappointing quarterly earnings, a sign its warehouse-club model may be less durable than expected in a shaky retail economy. Earnings were $1.17 a share in the fiscal second quarter, the Issaquah, Washington-based company said on Thursday. Analysts had predicted $1.36 a share.
  • One week ago, Caterpillar Inc. was being praised by President Donald Trump for producing great bulldozers. “I love Caterpillar,” Trump told company Chairman Doug Oberhelman at a meeting of manufacturing heads at the White House. On Thursday, officials from the Commerce Department, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Illinois State Police moved in and out of the company’s corporate headquarters in Peoria, Illinois, in a raid seeking evidence related to exports and a Swiss subsidiary as part of a criminal probe.

International:

  • European stocks declined as investors assessed a rally that’s pushed equities to the biggest weekly gain of the year. The benchmark on Wednesday surged the most since the U.S. election as hawkish comments by Federal Reserve officials boosted bets for a rate increase this month.
  • PSA Group is closing in on a deal to acquire General Motors Co.’s Opel unit to create Europe’s second-largest automaker, with an agreement possibly coming early next week, according to people familiar with the matter.
  • London Stock Exchange Group Plc said it raised its full-year dividend 20 percent, a potential reward for shareholders reckoning with the likely collapse of Deutsche Boerse AG’s planned takeover of the company. The exchange shocked investors Sunday by saying the $13 billion deal was unlikely to proceed because it wouldn’t comply with a divestment sought by competition watchdogs.
  • China has the economic power to move markets, and it isn’t afraid to use it. South Korean stock trading offered a case in point Friday, with a selloff in hotels, cosmetic makers and other tourism-related companies that made the country’s benchmark the worst performer among Asian equity markets.
  • The world’s biggest pension fund posted the biggest quarterly gain in its history as Japanese stocks surged and a plunge in the yen boosted overseas investments after Donald Trump’s election victory. The Government Pension Investment Fund returned 8 percent, or 10.5 trillion yen ($92 billion), in the three months ended Dec. 31, increasing assets to 144.8 trillion yen.

 

*All sources from Bloomberg unless otherwise specified