Archives of “March 2019” month

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Crude oil futures are settling at $55.80 for the day/week.

  
Analysis, Crude

Down on the week

The price of crude oil futures are settling at $55.80 for the day/week. That is down $1.42 or 2.48%. For the week, the price is down from last week’s close at $57.26 which is about the amount of the decline today.
The high for the week reached was reached today at $57.88. The low was at $55.02 reached on Tuesday.  Technically, the price this week traded above and below its 100 day MA- currently at $56.05 (blue line in the chart below).  Today’s move kicked the pair below that level.
Crude oil is settling down on the day and the week

US stocks close with solid gains on the day

  
Analysis, US Market

Nasday up for the 10th week in a row

The US stock market is closed for the week. The S&P is up for the 4th day in a row.  The S&P has had the best start to the year since 1991 after last years decline. The Nasdaq’s rise is the longest winning streak since late 1999.
The final numbers are showing:
  • TheS&P is closing up 19.28 points or 0.65% at 2803.77
  • The NASDAQ is closing up 62.82 points or 0.83% at 7595.35
  • The Dow industrial average is closing up 110.32 points or 0.43% at 26026.32
For the week, the major indices were mixed
  • The S&P index rose by 0.39%
  • The NASDAQ index rose by 0.90%
  • The Dow closed near unchanged at -0.02%
The Dow’s fall was the first after 9 straight weeks of increases.

European shares end the week with Friday gains

  
Analysis, Global Indices

Major indices higher on the week as well

The major European stock indices are ending the week with Friday gains:
  • German DAX, +0.7%
  • France’s CAC, +0.5%
  • UK’s FTSE, +0.4%
  • Spain’s Ibex, +0.2%
  • Italy’s FTSE MIB, +0.17%

For the week, apart from the UK FTSE, indices were higher:

  • German DAX, +1.26%
  • France’s CAC, +0.95%
  • UK’s FTSE, -1.08%
  • Spain’s Ibex, +0.9%
  • Italy’s FTSE MIB, +2.15%

Eurozone February final manufacturing PMI 49.3 vs 49.2 prelim

  
Analysis, Economy

Latest data released by Markit – 1 March 2019

  • Prior 50.5

The preliminary reading can be found here. Only a mild improvement to initial estimates but more or less similar. The final reading here confirms that manufacturing activity in the region now sits in contraction territory and the print here sits at the lowest since June 2013.

If this carries over into March, it’s going to take some real heavy lifting in the services sector to cover for flagging growth in the Eurozone economy during Q1.

Copper and the relationship with AUD

  
  Analysis

Around 70% correlation-

The Australian dollar and Copper have around a 70% correlation. If you look at the weekly chart below you can see that they tend to move pretty closely with one another.  AUDUSD is the red lone and Copper (HG!) is the candlestick chart.
Around 70% correlation-
Another key relationship is between Copper and the Chinese economy. China uses about 50% of the globe’s usage of Copper, so yesterday’s weak PMI data out of China and a strong copper market was a divergence highlighted in Bloomberg’s markets Live blog I read yesterday. The weak PMI”S out of China, as reported by our very own wonderful Eamonn, will be crucial in setting sentiment for the global industrial sector. Bloomberg reported that the current strength of the copper market may be a result of falling LME stockpiles  propping up prices.

(more…)

MSCI to quadruple the contribution of mainland Chinese companies’ to its benchmarks

  
Analysis, Economy

Dow Jones / Wall Street Journal with the news on a huge boost for China shares

  • MSCI provides stock market indexes
  • The firm will increase the contribution of mainland Chinese companies’ to its benchmarks by a factor of four
Says the Journal:
  • a move that makes shares in Shanghai and Shenzhen all but unignorable for many international investors.
Sure does.
Link (WSJ is gated)
If you can’t access the WSJ, the FT has news also (oh, yeah, the FT is gated but a free registration can help access a certain number of articles each month):
  • MSCI included Chinese “A-shares” in the MSCI Emerging Markets index last year, but with a modest inclusion factor of 5 per cent of the float-adjusted market capitalisation that was added in two stages in May and August.
  • On Thursday, MSCI lifted the inclusion factor to 20 per cent, which will in practice triple the Chinese weighting in its EM index from 0.71 per cent to 2.82 per cent by August next year.
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