Today is the last trading day of the week, the month, the quarter, and for many companies in the investment industry, the fiscal year and so far, it seems as though investors have hit the pause button and are looking ahead to next week’s PMI and employment numbers.
US index futures are quiet this morning between a 0.2% gain for Dow Futures and a 0.1% dip for NASDAQ futures, following gains of 0.4% to 0.8% yesterday for US indices. Overseas, the Hang Seng rose 0.5%, the Nikkei jumped 1.0%, the Dax is up 0.4% and the FTSE is up 0.2%. The US 10-year treasury note yield is flat near 3.55%. WTI and Brent Crude are up 0.7% and 0.2% respectively, sitting just below $75.00/bbl and $80.00 respectively. Gold is flat sitting just below $2,000/oz.
US Core PCE inflation, the Fed’s preferred measure, came in slightly better than expected, continues to steadily trend back downward, and is below the Fed Funds rate (4.6% vs street and previous 4.7%), suggesting that pressure on the Fed to continue raising interest rates may potentially ease further.
US Chicago PMI (street 43.4 vs previous 43.6), a potential preview of Monday’s national and international Manufacturing PMI reports, is due at 9:45 am EDT. China reported positive Manufacturing PMI (51.9 vs street 51.5) and Non-Manufacturing PMI (58.2 vs previous 56.3).
Corporate news has been mixed. Blackberry beat expectations on earnings (-$0.03 vs street -$0.11) but missed on sales ($204M vs street $210M). Big US banks are bouncing back again with premarket gains of around 0.4% on average. On the negative side, troubled Virgin Orbit pretty much shut down all operations, while Bed Bath and Beyond continues to warn it may need to file for bankruptcy soon.
