Economic mirror of the day, comments

Economic mirror of the day


Following the auction on April 10, the value of the June contract for Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange in London increased by $ 0.74 (1.34%) to $ 55.98 per barrel.
May futures on WTI on the New York Mercantile Exchange NYMEX went up by $ 0.84 (1.61%) - and amounted to $ 53.08 barrel.
Today, black gold loses a little in price after rising 5 consecutive days. June futures for Brent crude on the London Stock Exchange declined by 6 cents (0.11%) to $ 55.92 per barrel by 8:02 Moscow time.
Quotes of the May contract for oil WTI sank by 10 cents (0.19%) - to $ 52.98 per barrel.

In today's Asian trading, the yen continues to appreciate against most of the world's currencies on fears of growing geopolitical tensions related to Syria and North Korea.
The euro fell $ 1.0587 compared to $ 1.0596 at the close of the market on Monday.
The dollar at the same time paired with the yen dropped to 110.65 yen compared with 110.94 yen at the close of the previous session.
For the euro, 117.14 yen were given against 117.56 yen on Monday.

US stock indices finished the volatile session on Monday with a slight increase, as the growth of the energy sector compensated for the losses of financial companies ahead of the corporate reporting season later this week.
S & P's energy sector increased by 0.8 percent, showing the best dynamics among the sectors of the S & P500 index, due to rising oil prices.
Investors are preparing for the beginning of quarterly reporting. According to Reuters, it is expected that the profits of companies included in the S & P 500 index rose by 10.1 percent in the first three months of the year.
The Dow Jones closed the session with an increase of 0.01 percent to 20.658.02 points, the S & P 500 index - by 0.07 percent to 2.357.16 points, the Nasdaq Composite index - by 0.05 percent to 5.880.93 points.
JPMorgan, Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Wells Fargo should report on the results on Thursday and may shed some light on the state of the US banking sector amid rallying financial stocks after the victory of Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Lately, bank shares have lost ground, as investors began to doubt whether their high value is justified, and also in Trump's ability to relax regulation and fulfill other promises after failing with the bill on health care reform.
Financial sector S & P 500 has decreased 0,3 percent.
Paper Swift Transportation jumped 23.7 percent to $ 24.77, as the company agreed to merge with another cargo carrier Knight Transportation. Shares of the latter rose by 13.4 percent.

 

Global growth is expected to slow down significantly in the coming months as borrowing levels dominate in both China and Europe and "Trump-mania" is set to fade, a chief economist at Danish investment firm Saxo Bank told CNBC on Monday.

"Our main global macro outlook still maintains that recession is more likely than not in the near future (12 to 18 months) based on the global credit impulse having peaked simultaneously with global inflation," Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank, said.

In a recent note, Jakobsen explained that the biggest "perception-versus-reality gap" in the market currently remains this risk of recession. He added that his company is not predicting a recession, but that its economic model does indicate a significant slowdown as "the large credit impulse from China and Europe in the early part of 2016 has not reversed to negative", which it says should make the market conservative, risk averse push investors into U.S. fixed income.

"While the market at large sees less than a 10 percent chance of recession, we at Saxo – together with our friends at South Africa's Nedbank – see more than a 60 percent chance," he added in the note.

Europe is seen as the main region driving global growth, according to Jakobsen, beating the U.S. in the second and third quarters of this year. Jakobsen is not alone in this thesis, with a number of investment houses recently upgrading their outlooks on European stocks as fears recede on the rise of populism and polls indicate that centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron is likely to do well at the upcoming French elections.

Mike Bell, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNBC Monday that European stocks "look pretty cheap" compared to U.S. stocks. "What you're starting to see now is that underperformance of earnings that you've seen since the financial crisis is disappearing," he said. There's been a fundamental acceleration in the euro zone economy, he also noted.

But, according to Jakobsen, Europe's momentum is not followed in other parts of the globe.

"One thing is absolutely clear: Asia is not going to contribute anything in 2017 to growth. China is on total standstill," Jakobsen said Monday.

"They don't know what to do with (President Donald) Trump and I think Trump again showed his hand over the weekend that he is not to be relied on in terms of a set-out path for how they conducted themselves," he added.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during a summit last week to develop trade talks during the next 100 days to reduce the Chinese trade surplus with the U.S. They also agreed to increase cooperation to curb North Korea's nuclear program.

Shortly after the meeting, Trump sent 100,000-ton USS Carl Vinson and U.S. Navy support ships to the Pacific as a show of force amid rising fears that North Korea will launch an intercontinental ballistic missile test in the coming days. Last week, Trump approved a missile strike on Syria, after an alleged chemical attack. Such a decision overshadowed the summit with his Chinese counterpart.

Furthermore, the main driver of U.S. equities seems to be hope, Jacobson added. The S&P 500 has reached historic highs since the new president took office on expectations that he will deliver massive tax cuts and infrastructure investments.