Like a Demi Lovato song, US CEO’s show confidence at its highest level since mid-2022, mentioning improved sales outlooks, investment initiatives and hiring plans, per Bloomberg. So, watch out shorts.
The US gov, that is. Supposedly we’re investing $3.5bn in the co for the production of advanced chips for military and intelligence programs, per Bloomberg.
Per Reuters, GS is increasing its buyback projections for the S&P due to estimated mega-cap tech initiatives. Again, watch out broad-based shorts.
ECB is keeping rates flat for now, but it looks like they’re angling to start cutting along with the US, per Reuters. Put the market’s summer foam party on your calendar. The EZ may come back into favor. For the US, Franklin Templeton is warning that delays in easing could heighten economic risks and push benchmark yields back toward 5%, which no one is ready for.
Well, I do. So, it’s a bit of a head scratcher that Powell is flagging that they may scale back plans to require banks to hold more capital, per Bloomberg. We prefer Japanese banks anyway.
As of now, I won’t buy off of Temu. But their massive push into the US market seems to be working, and it’s benefitting some US tech players, namely Meta and Google per msn. PDD, the parent of the co, spent $2bn on ads at META alone, and was 1 of the top 5 at GOOG. I’m just not comfortable giving China my financial info and spending patterns right now.
Per Reuters, Jan-Feb data on China’s export growth was above forecasts. If true (a big if), it would be a positive for global trade. Demand for electronics was big. Prices stayed firm. Biz with the US was solid, yet with the EZ was still weak. Along with solid data from South Korea, Germany and Taiwan, there may be some green shoots here. So, those China shorts may need to be traded in for a bathing suit so you can jump in. On a separate note China’s central bank added gold to its reserves for a 16th straight month in Jan, so thank you, China, for helping our position out.
If you’re not ready, then you haven’t been reading our Arrows. Japan’s gov is ready to support a near-term BOJ rate hike, per BBG. Japan’s nominal wages rose at their fastest pace since June (real wage declines narrowed), so the yen was up at a 1-mo high, per BBG. If you own the EWJ, you should be ok…but individual stock bets may need to be switched to more domestic-oriented names.
The UK’s economy is expected to suffer a 4% hit from leaving the EU, including a 15% reduction in trade. This was so easy to see coming. Emotions were running high inside the country, so they made a really bad decision.
Reports are out that AAPL dumped $1bn annually into its EV car that won’t ever see the light of day.
NVDA or Novo?
Obesity wins..