Top 5 Things to Know in the Market on Friday - Investing.com

© Reuters.

Investing.com -- Stocks are within touching distance of new all-time highs after China stoked hopes of a trade deal with the U.S. Meanwhile, sterling is at a two-month high as Brexit risks recede, and WeWork's IPO is back on the road. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Friday, 13th September.

1. China encourages trade hopes

China indirectly encouraged hopes of trade détente with the U.S., as Global Times editor Hu Xijin suggested via Twitter that the Chinese government is leaning on agricultural buyers to of U.S. soybeans and pork.

Hu’s tweets aren’t government policy but have been a reasonably reliable indicator of Chinese thinking on trade in recent months, reflecting the Global Times’s status as a vehicle for Chinese Communist Party thought.

2The news came after President Donald Trump tried to downplay a Bloomberg report on Thursday suggesting that he was prepared to offer a temporary truce, delaying or even rolling back some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump told reporters he would “rather get the whole deal done."

2. Stocks close in on all-time highs

The increasing signs of a thaw between the U.S. and China have sent stock markets back to within touching distance of all-time highs.

By 5:45 AM ET, were up 94 points or 0.3%, while and were also both up 0.3%, the S&P contract less than half a percent away from its record high.

The risk-on move found its mirror image in the dollar and in Treasury bond yields. The benchmark note yield rose to 1.80%, its highest in over a month and a comfortable seven basis points above the benchmark. The dollar, meanwhile, fell against the , and offshore

3. Sterling hits highest since July

The rose to its highest in nearly two months overnight, after a newspaper report gave fresh impetus to hopes that a disorderly “no-deal” Brexit will be avoided on Oct. 31.

The Times of London reported that the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party had effectively dropped its opposition to a plan that would leave much of its economy subject to EU rather than U.K. regulation after Brexit, something that gives Prime Minister Boris Johnson more room to work out a compromise on the issue with EU negotiators. The DUP’s leader in the House of Commons later denied the report, however.

The pound, which has traded almost exclusively on Brexit risk in recent weeks, rose above $1.24 for the first time since late July and was up 1% against the dollar at $1.2453 by 5:50 AM.

4. Michigan Consumer Sentiment due

The University of Michigan’s survey at 10 AM ET leads a relatively light day for U.S. economic data. The survey comes a day after the index hit its highest level in 2019 – rising 2.4% year-on-year – in a development that gives ammunition to those arguing against aggressive action from the Federal Reserve next week.

Investing.com’s suggests markets no longer view a rate cut next week as a certainty. The implicit probability of action has fallen to 87% from over 92% a week ago.

Federal Reseve Chairman Jerome Powell has argued that uncertainty over trade policy is among the biggest drags on the U.S. economy at present. Any moves to lift that uncertainty would, by that logic, weaken the case for easing.

5. WeWork gets IPO back on the road, WSJ says

WeWork’s parent company is set to begin its IPO marketing next week after agreeing to concessions to outside investors on governance issues, the Wall Street Journal reported.

We Company, as it’s known, intends to list on the Nasdaq, the WSJ added. There was no further update as regards the prospective valuation, which various reports has been slashed from $47 billion to less than $20 billion in recent weeks.

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2019-09-13 10:54:00Z
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Top 5 Things to Know in the Market on Friday - Investing.com

© Reuters.

Investing.com -- Stocks are within touching distance of new all-time highs after China stoked hopes of a trade deal with the U.S. Meanwhile, sterling is at a two-month high as Brexit risks recede, and WeWork's IPO is back on the road. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Friday, 13th September.

1. China encourages trade hopes

China indirectly encouraged hopes of trade détente with the U.S., as Global Times editor Hu Xijin suggested via Twitter that the Chinese government is leaning on agricultural buyers to of U.S. soybeans and pork.

Hu’s tweets aren’t government policy but have been a reasonably reliable indicator of Chinese thinking on trade in recent months, reflecting the Global Times’s status as vehicle for Chinese Communist Party thought.

The news came after President Donald Trump tried to downplay a Bloomberg report on Thursday suggesting that he was prepared offer a temporary truce, delaying or even rolling back some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump told reporters he would “rather get the whole deal done.

2. Stocks close in on all-time highs

The increasing signs of a thaw between the U.S. and China have sent stock markets back to within touching distance of all-time highs.

By 5:45 AM ET, were up 94 points or 0.3%, while and were also both up 0.3%, the S&P contract less than half a percent away from its record high.

The risk-on move found its mirror image in the dollar and in Treasury bond yields. The benchmark note yield rose to 1.80%, its highest in over a month and a comfortable seven basis points above the benchmark. The dollar, meanwhile, fell against the , and offshore

3. Sterling hits highest since July

The rose to its highest in nearly two months overnight, after a newspaper report gave fresh impetus to hopes that a disorderly “no-deal” Brexit will be avoided on Oct. 31.

The Times of London reported that the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party had effectively dropped its opposition to a plan that would leave much of its economy subject to EU rather than U.K. regulation after Brexit, something that gives Prime Minister Boris Johnson more room to work out a compromise on the issue with EU negotiators. The DUP’s leader in the House of Commons later denied the report, however.

The pound, which has traded almost exclusively on Brexit risk in recent weeks, rose above $1.24 for the first time since late July and was up 1% against the dollar at $1.2453 by 5:50 AM.

4. Michigan Consumer Sentiment due

The University of Michigan’s survey at 10 AM ET leads a relatively light day for U.S. economic data. The survey comes a day after the index hit its highest level in 2019 – rising 2.4% year-on-year – in a development that gives ammunition to those arguing against aggressive action from the Federal Reserve next week.

Investing.com’s Fed rate monitor tool suggests markets no longer view a rate cut next week as a certainty. The implicit probability of action has fallen to 87% from over 92% a week ago.

Federal Reseve Chairman Jerome Powell has argued that uncertainty over trade policy is among the biggest drags on the U.S. economy at present. Any moves to lift that uncertainty would, by that logic, weaken the case for easing.

5. WeWork gets IPO back on the road, WSJ says

WeWork’s parent company is set to begin its IPO marketing next week after agreeing to concessions to outside investors on governance issues, the Wall Street Journal reported.

We Company, as it’s known, intends to list on the Nasdaq, the WSJ added. There was no further update as regards the prospective valuation, which various reports has been slashed from $47 billion to less than $20 billion in recent weeks.

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2019-09-13 10:21:00Z
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Palace Revolt at the ECB, Legitimacy of Policy out the Window - WOLF STREET

Draghi’s desperate shenanigans thicken.

ECB President Mario Draghi, who is on his way out, will, as we’re learning more and more, do anything to push his agenda and make it stick at the ECB long after he leaves, but whatever his agenda may be, it’s clearly unrelated to the European economy which has been buckling under the consequences of his agenda: the destructive weight of negative interest rates and QE. And in the process, he is destroying the legitimacy of the ECB’s policy.

The latest incident was on Thursday. During the press conference following the ECB’s policy meeting, he lied to reporters, claiming that the “consensus was so broad there was no need to take a vote,” when in fact he had a revolt on his hand during the meeting by the presidents of the national central banks that represented half of the economy of the Eurozone, and by members of the Executive Board.

Among the key policy changes the ECB announced on Thursday was the restart of QE to the tune of €20 billion a month and a tiny 10-basis point cut in its deposit rate, from the old negative -0.4% to the new negative -0.5%.

The announcement also included a provision to help banks – which have been getting re-crushed by these idiotic negative interest rates – to survive those negative interest rates: the ECB would exempt part of the banks’ deposits at the ECB from negative rates in a two-tier system.

It was the QE portion of the decision that had triggered the unprecedented revolt during the meeting. “Officials with knowledge of the matter” told Bloomberg that during the contentious meeting, the members of the Governing Council and of the Executive Board who vigorously opposed the restart of QE included but was not limited to:

• Jens Weidmann, President of the Bundesbank
• Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France
• Klaas Knot, President of the Dutch central bank
• Ewald Nowotny, Governor of the Austrian central bank
• Ardo Hansson, Governor of the Bank of Estonia
• Sabine Lautenschlaeger, Member of the Executive Board
• Benoit Coeure, Member of the Executive Board

The countries of the five heads of the national central banks, from Weidmann to Hansson, account for about half of the economy of the Eurozone.

They opposed the restart of QE, but there was no vote – which is common in ECB proceedings when there is a consensus. But there was no consensus. And Draghi simply imposed his agenda.

“Such disagreement over a major monetary policy measure has never been seen during Draghi’s eight-year tenure,” according to Bloomberg’s sources.

Among the key reasons cited against relaunching QE now, according to the sources, was that there is no emergency, and it’s better to save QE for an emergency, such as some big turmoil in the Eurozone following a no-deal Brexit.

Nevertheless, during the press conference after the contentious meeting, Draghi lied to reporters about it, when he told them ridiculously:

“There was more diversity of views on APP [asset purchase program]. But then, in the end, a consensus was so broad there was no need to take a vote. So the decision in the end showed a very broad consensus. As I said, there was no need to take a vote. There was such a clear majority.”

But this wasn’t the first time that Draghi was exposed as having lied blatantly about what had transpired during the policy meeting.

In a speech in June about an unrelated historical topic he said that “additional stimulus will be required,” in form of “further cuts in policy interest rates” and additional bond purchases, and that “all these options were raised and discussed at our last meeting.”

But those were blatant lies too. Sources who were part of the ECB’s June meeting told Reuters that no such options were discussed. Draghi had simply sallied forth on his own, pushing his agenda, and trying to force the ECB’s hand [read… No, Rate Cuts Were Not Discussed: ECB Insiders Out Draghi as Fabricator & Schemer, and Talk to Reuters]

The fact that both of these blatant and manipulative lies – concerning the Thursday meeting and concerning the June meeting – were leaked at all indicates that internally within the ECB, Draghi is going down in flames and that the revolters are offering tidbits of his shenanigans up for public consumption, even as he’s trying to force the ECB on a track it cannot get off after he leaves.

The ECB already has two mega-problems on its hand: Acknowledging that negative interest rates are a destructive experiment that is now blowing up into their faces and that they need to somehow back away from; and acknowledging that QE as standard monetary policy is an economic failure that creates all kinds of wild distortions – though it glued to Eurozone together by having prevented more sovereign defaults after Greece’s default, particularly a default by Italy.

But now the ECB has a third problem on its hand: The legitimacy of its policy decisions has been revealed to be a joke; and that this circus has become a one-man show driven by Draghi’s own agenda.

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2019-09-13 05:44:34Z
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Asian Markets Rise as Trump Considers Interim Trade Agreement with China - Investing.com

© Reuters.

Investing.com - Asian markets rose in morning trade on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he is considering an interim trade deal with China.

Hong Kong’s gained 0.3% by 10:30 PM ET (02:30 GMT).

Citing five unnamed person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration officials are considering to offer a limited trade agreement to China that would delay and even roll back some U.S. tariffs.

The discussions are preliminary and Trump has yet to sign off on it, Bloomberg noted.

“A lot of people are talking about, and I see a lot of analysts are saying: an interim deal, meaning we’ll do pieces of it, the easy ones first,” Trump told reporters late Thursday. “But there’s no easy or hard. There’s a deal or there’s not a deal. But it’s something we would consider.”

The president added that he would preferred to “get the whole deal done,” but did not rule the possibility of an interim pact.

In-person negotiations between the two sides are set to take place in October in Washington.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced overnight a quantitative easing program that entails 20 billion euros per month. The central bank also cut its main deposit rate by 10 basis points to -0.5%, in line with market expectations.

The ECB will likely keep rates at present or lower levels until the inflation outlook “robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to but below 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been persistent.”

“In view of the weakening economic outlook and the continued prominence of downside risk, governments with fiscal space should act in an effective and timely manner,” ECB President Mario Draghi said.

“In countries where public debt is high, governments need to pursue prudent policies that will create the conditions for automatic stabilizers to operate freely. All countries should reinforce their efforts to achieve a more growth-friendly composition of public finances,” he added.

Japan’s traded 0.9% higher.

Down under, Australia’s inched up 0.1%.

Markets in China and South Korea are closed for holidays.

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Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.

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2019-09-13 03:35:00Z
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145 business leaders implore Senate to act on gun violence, saying doing nothing is ‘simply unacceptable’ - The Washington Post

Companies have come under pressure to act on gun violence after recent mass shootings, including two at Walmart stores. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/Bloomberg News)

September 12 at 7:54 AM

The chief executives of 145 U.S. companies pressed Senate leaders to expand background checks to all firearms sales and implement stronger “red flag” laws, marking the latest push by corporate America to pressure Congress to take meaningful action on gun violence.

Signatories to a letter sent Thursday include the heads of major retailers, tech firms, financial institutions, including Levi Strauss, Twitter, Uber, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Yelp, Bain Capital and Reddit. The letter pointed to mass shootings in recent weeks — including those in El Paso; Dayton, Ohio; and Gilroy, Calif. — but also called out a broader epidemic of gun violence that kills 100 Americans each day and wounds hundreds more.

[‘We’ve got to protect ourselves’: Some threaten to shop elsewhere if they can’t openly carry guns]

“As leaders of some of America’s most respected companies and those with significant business interests in the United States, we are writing to you because we have a responsibility and obligation to stand up for the safety of our employees, customers and all Americans in the communities we serve across the country,” the executives wrote.

“Doing nothing about America’s gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety,” they continued.

Corporate America has increasingly weighed in on — or been forced to reckon with — pressing social and political issues facing the country and the world, including immigration and abortion. On gun violence, companies including retailers and banks have considered whether to overhaul their policies or distance themselves from the vast firearm industry — or not. Gun sellers have come under acute pressure to limit the sales of firearms, especially since 24 people were killed at two separate shootings in Walmart stores in the past two months.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Americans across party and demographic lines overwhelmingly support expanded background checks for gun buyers and allowing law enforcement to temporarily seize weapons from troubled individuals. The poll found that 86 percent of Americans support implementing “red flag” provisions allowing guns to be taken from people judged to be a danger to themselves or others. And 89 percent support expanding federal background checks to cover private sales and gun-show transactions.

Specifically, Thursday’s letter urged the Senate to pass a bill requiring background checks on all gun sales plus a strong red-flag law that would allow courts to issue lifesaving extreme-risk protection orders. The House has passed gun-control bills, but they have stalled in the Senate.

“Since Congress established the background check system 25 years ago, background checks have blocked more than 3.5 million gun sales to prohibited purchasers like convicted felons and domestic abusers,” the letter states.

But in the subsequent decades, the background check law “has not been updated to reflect how guns are bought and sold today,” the company executives wrote. They said the Senate should follow actions taken by the House to pass bipartisan legislation to update the background checks law, “helping to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.”

[Dick’s Sporting Goods overhauled its gun policies after Parkland. The CEO didn’t stop there.]

The leaders also wrote that expanding red-flag laws would “enable families and law enforcement nationwide to intervene when someone is at serious risk of hurting themselves or others.”

Walmart, the largest employer in the country, did not sign Thursday’s letter. But last week, the company wrote a separate letter to Congress urging for a debate over reauthorizing an assault weapons ban. Walmart also announced it would stop selling ammunition for military-style weapons and no longer allow customers to openly carry firearms in stores. Other retailers also changed their open-carry policies, including Kroger, CVS and Walgreens.

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2019-09-12 11:21:51Z
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Walmart is expanding its 'unlimited' grocery delivery service nationwide - CNBC

A man pushes his shopping cart past bread for sale at a Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, California on May 23, 2019.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Walmart said Thursday it will be expanding a new "unlimited" grocery delivery service, which costs users $98 annually, to 1,400 stores this fall.

The biggest retailer in the world had earlier this year been testing what it calls Delivery Unlimited in four markets — Houston, Miami, Salt Lake City and Tampa. As part of the nationwide rollout, it said the service will be available in 200 metro areas where it already has regular grocery delivery, reaching more than 50% of the U.S. population, by the end of the year.

Walmart's Delivery Unlimited gives shoppers the option to pay either $98 per year or $12.95 per month to receive unlimited grocery delivery orders to their homes. Typically, on an order-by-order basis, delivery would cost an additional $9.99. In addition to fresh produce, meat and bakery items, some general merchandise is offered under the new unlimited service, the company said.

"We've been investing in our online grocery business by quickly expanding our Grocery Pickup and Delivery services. Delivery Unlimited is the next step in that journey," Tom Ward, senior vice president of Walmart's digital operations in the U.S., said in a statement. "By pairing our size and scale and these services we're making Walmart the easiest place to shop."

Walmart said it has more than 45,000 personal shoppers helping it pack grocery orders for customers every day. It says these people must complete three weeks of training before they can begin that work.

This nationwide rollout builds on a strong grocery business that Walmart has already been amassing in the U.S. It has an online grocery order pickup option, for example, available at nearly 3,000 stores today.

Other retailers offer similar options, with which Walmart is trying to compete.

Target owns delivery platform Shipt, where users can pay $99 per year to have certain items, including groceries, delivered same day. Amazon's Prime membership has an annual fee of $119, in order to have perks like free same-day delivery and discounts at Whole Foods Market. FreshDirect and Instacart are other competitors in the space.

Meanwhile, Walmart is also this fall testing delivering groceries directly inside customers' homes.

Walmart shares are up nearly 25% this year.

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2019-09-12 09:08:35Z
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The world's biggest brewer may resurrect its massive Hong Kong IPO - CNN

The world's biggest brewer said in a statement Thursday that there is no assurance that the transaction will go through "and the decision to proceed will depend on a number of factors and prevailing market conditions."

Asian stock markets have been turbulent this year, largely because of the trade war between the United States and China. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index is down 5.1% since the beginning of July, hit by a political crisis that has seen months of mass demonstrations.

AB InBev was hoping to raise as much as $9.8 billion by listing Budweiser Brewing Company APAC, the largest brewer in Asia by retail sales, before pulling the planned July offering. The IPO would have topped Uber (UBER), which raised $8.1 billion in New York in May.

AB InBev could use the funds to reduce its massive debt load. The company has already made moves to steady its balance sheet, cutting its dividend in half last last year and unloading its Australian business for $11.3 billion in July.

AB InBev became the world's top brewer by borrowing money to fund a series of acquisitions. The company's most recent mega purchase, of SABMiller, increased its debt to $102.5 billion in 2018.

An Asia IPO could also help the company in China, the world's largest market for beer. AB InBev's sales in the country grew 8.3% last year, with brands like Budweiser and Corona performing especially well.

The listing would be a win for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Reports emerged last month that internet giant Alibaba (BABA) would delay plans to raise $15 billion through a secondary listing in Hong Kong amid the ongoing political unrest. Alibaba declined to comment at the time.

CNN Business' Laura He contributed to this report.

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2019-09-12 04:37:00Z
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