Although I have friends there right now, it’s still hard to listen to all the pontification coming out of that place, right? I would rather hear from actual machine tool workers in Japan telling us how the economy is doing. Japan machinery orders shrank as manufacturers pulled orders, due to the challenging economic backdrop, per Reuters.
US jobless claims fell to 187k, the lowest since Sep 2022. Labor is strong. The data does not support the idea of the Fed cutting any time soon, folks.
Apple Watches will go on sale without the blood oxygen feature after the court ruling, per Axios.
TSMC rose premarket after noting a return to “healthy growth” this year, beating on profits last quarter, and saying that AI can help drive revenues as much as 25%, per Bloomberg.
Remember how we reported that Musk is looking for more voting power at Tesla? Maybe it’s because he sees weakness ahead and doesn’t want the consequences personally. Tesla cut the price of its Model Y cars in Europe, a week after reducing prices in China because of uncertain EV demand, per Reuters.
That title’s for you tennis fans out there…Australia unexpectedly shed >65k jobs in Dec, so investors are pricing in a 60% chance the RBA will lower borrowing costs in Aug, up from 50%. The Aussie dollar dropped as well, so if you’re over there, things got a bit cheaper for you.
It sounds like the oil market could stay “reasonably well supplied” this year. Output from outside OPEC+ increased 25% on gains in the Americas, per the IEA. Stockpiles are up in the US as well.
$1.5bn of profit-taking post the ETF conversion on GBTC is what is dragging crypto markets lower, per JPM. Bitcoin’s price is down >-10% since the launch of spot ETFs last week. Folks traded away from the undervalued GBTC fund and cashed out, opting not to reinvest in cheaper spot bitcoin ETFs. They posit there could be another $1.5bn to leave. Outflows also are pressuring Grayscale to reduce its egregious 1.5% fee. If it loses its liquidity advantage, we’d expect a lot more would leave.
Dust off those Healthcare and Staples companies in the US…they typically do well in an easing cycle by the Fed.
