Oil is up, on the back of Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the Gaza Strip after a surprise offensive by Palestinian militants Hamas on Sat morn. Israel is cutting off water, electricity, food and fuel this morning. The shekel declined to a 7-year low, so Israel’s central bank sold $30bn in foreign reserves. Airline stocks are down given suspended flights and oil prices. European defense stocks are up. You may see some overbuying in energy stocks today because GS reported that global hedge fund managers sold US energy stocks at a greater pace last week.
Bloomberg is out with a warning that stocks are going to have a hard time from an expected increase in profit warnings, caused by fading US consumer spending trends.
It’s not Nipah but strikes that are the focus of 2023. When there’s a successful strike, workers watch and rally. Roughly 453k workers have gone on strike this year, per CNBC.
Peltz increased his Disney stake and wants a board seat again; Reuters.
Google announced an AI-powered search solution for healthcare whereby workers can pull clinical info from different types of sources, in order to save time and money. Also, the solution can help workers find correct billing codes and determine eligibility for clinical trials. The AMA estimates that for every 1 hour of patient visits, physicians spend 2 hours on admin. The solution is called Vertex AI Search.
Bristol Myers is buying cancer drugmaker Mirati for $4.8bn, per CNBC. Birkenstock’s IPO is at the top of its valuation range of $10bn.
In Sep, China’s PBOC added to its gold holdings for an 11th straight month. So, they are prepping, folks. New home sales in China were down -17% y/y. Folks are saving, not spending. China’s tourism revenue increased from last year but is still below pre-pandemic levels, per Reuters. Interestingly, per the Nikkei, global investors are still staying away from Chinese stocks despite better economic data.
The IMF reduced its global growth forecasts for countries other than the US. They expect global GDP to grow by 3% in 2023 and 2024, with the US at 1.8% and 1.0% respectively.
Japan markets were closed Monday for Health-Sports Day. Where’s that Hallmark/bank holiday here in the US?