SIA Wealth Morning Minutes will not be issued tomorrow. It should return on Wednesday April 19.
It’s a quiet morning for business news, leaving investors to digest Friday’s better than expected US bank earnings and the worse than expected US retail sales report. The only notable announcements so far today are video game producer Sega agreeing to purchase rival Rovio for $776M, Merck agreeing to purchase Prometheus Biosciences for $10.8B, and a much more positive than expected US Empire Manufacturing Report (+10.8 vs street -18.0 and previous 24.6%).
Economic news picks up again tonight with Chinese Q1 GDP plus retail sales and industrial production reports. Tomorrow brings Canadian inflation numbers. The rest of the week is dominated by inflation and retail sales report from Canada, the US and elsewhere, US housing data and Flash PMI reports on Friday.
Earnings season continues this week with more reports from US national and regional banks. Reporting also broadens out into more sectors including personal products, railroads, airlines, technology, homebuilding, steelmakers, autos, consumer durables and others. These reports may give investors an indication of what impact the recent banking crisis, or rising interest rates in general, have had on the broader economy. Headliners include: Netflix, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs on Tuesday; Tesla Motors, IBM and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday; Union Pacific and American Express on Thursday, and Schlumberger on Friday.
Monday finds US index futures and European indices trading flat, with the biggest move a 0.2% gain for the FTSE. The US Dollar is up slightly with the US 10-year treasury note yield rising toward 3.45%. Bitcoin is down 1.9% while Gold is up 0.2% and Platinum is up 1.0%. WTI Crude Oil is down 0.7% and Copper is down 0.3% as commodity markets struggle.
