Bouncing back from Friday’s mixed action that saw the Dow fall 0.75% and the NASDAQ rise 0.4%, US index futures are in the green to start the week with gains of 0.2% to 0.4%. In commodity trading, energy markets are under pressure with natural gas getting slammed to a 6.1% loss and WTI crude oil sliding 0.6%. In metals action, copper is down 1.0% while gold is down 0.5%, but silver is flat.
It’s looking to be a very variable week for business news around the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. Today is pretty quiet so far for corporate and economic news. On the corporate side, retailing dominates the agenda. Several mid-tier retailers report earnings on Tuesday and Wednesday. The focus then turns to Black Friday traffic and sales from the Thursday holiday through to Cyber Monday a week from today.
Economic news picks up tonight with Flash PMI reports coming for several countries, the first peek at economic conditions in November. Wednesday brings three days of US economic reports crammed into one due to the holiday, headlined by durable goods orders, new home sales, weekly energy inventories and minutes from the last FOMC meeting.
Speaking of central banks, it’s possible that President Biden may announce his decision for who we wants to lead the Fed into the next leadership term, current Chair Jerome Powell, or the historically more dovish Governor Lael Brainard. Last night, the People’s Bank of China reportedly softened its tone, removing some of the more hawkish elements of previous statements, but didn’t announce any changes. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, who has been the most hawkish central bank lately having raised interest rates at its last meeting, meets later tomorrow.
