Archives of “August 17, 2020” day

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Nikkei 225 closes lower by 0.83% at 23,096.75

  
Analysis, Global Indices

Mixed tones in Asian equities today

Nikkei 17-08

Japanese stocks are lower to start the week, as we see a bit more subdued tones outside of the more positive mood in Chinese equities – which owed to the PBOC’s liquidity injection earlier in the day here.

That is helping to see the Shanghai Composite up by 2.4% with the Hang Seng also relatively buoyed, trading up by 1.2% currently.
Elsewhere, US futures are a little higher by ~0.2% but the overall risk mood in the market is more mixed as we look towards European trading today.
Major currencies are also trading in narrower ranges, little changed on the day so far. EUR/USD is a little higher at 1.1858 but capped by last Thursday’s high @ 1.1865.

Heads up for the potential of supportive tweets from Trump on Monday

  
  Analysis

Axios report the president has been lobbied on a botanical extract hyped as a cure for COVID-19.

Via the report:
  • Trump has expressed enthusiasm for the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be marketed as a dietary supplement or, alternatively, approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works.
  • The experimental botanical extract, oleandrin, was promoted to Trump during an Oval Office meeting in July. 
Axios published the piece over the weekend, link here.
Its bizarre but we are all aware of how impressionable Trump is, Drink bleach, hydroxychloroquine … could this be his next promotion? A few tweets from Trump and the S&P could catch a bid. We are all aware of that playing out in the past also.
One thing, at least oleander is much easier to spell than hydroxychloroquine.
Axios report the president has been lobbied on a botanical extract hyped as a cure for COVID-19.

‘Game changer’ COVID-19 test approved by the US FDA over the weekend

  
  Analysis
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The US FDA authorised the emergency use of a new saliva based laboratory diagnostic test for coronavirus.

 A key difference is the speed of the test, its being described as a ‘game changer’.
The sped allows more people to access rapid easily.
Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drugs Administration Commissioner:
  • “Providing this type of flexibility for processing saliva samples to test for COVID-19 infection is groundbreaking in terms of efficiency and avoiding shortages of crucial test components like reagents”
Its called SalivaDirect
  • has been tested amongst US National Basketball Association (NBA) players and staff
  • simpler, less expensive, less invasive than nasopharyngeal (NP) swabbing
  • yields similar outcomes as NP swabbing
Current testing:
The US FDA authorised the emergency use of a new saliva based laboratory diagnostic test for coronavirus.
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ps. For clarity, this is a test for the infection, not a treatment. That is clear above, but wanted to restate it.

Japan GDP preliminary for Q2 -7.8% q/q (vs. expected -7.5%)

  
Analysis, Economy
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Japan GDP preliminary for Q2 2020, capturing the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and response

GDP sa -7.8% q/q  , a miss on already ugly low expectations

  • expected -7.5%, prior -0.6%

GDP annualised sa -27.8% q/q (ps when you see screaming headlines that Japan’s economy has shrunken 30% …. it hasn’t, but this is what the economically illiterate are referring to – you’ll know better)

  • expected -26.9%, prior -2.2%

GDP nominal -7.4% q/q

  • expected -6.5%, prior -0.5%

GDP deflator (an inflation indication) %

  • expected 1.7%, prior 0.9%

Private consumption -8.2%

  • expected -6.9% q/q, prior -0.8%

Business spending -1.5% … if there is some not quite so bad news to take away from the data release this smaller than expected drop in capex is it

  • expected -4.0%, prior -1.7%
This is the 3rd consecutive quarter of GDP contraction for Japan.
Japan is a net exporters, the decline in demand offshore has taken a heavy toll on shipments – Q2 exports fell at their fastest since Q1 2009 (GFC influence) and external demand has subtracted the biggest hit from GDP since 1980 (based on comparable data).
ps. yen is doing little on the data release.

Weekend Trump comments – says Alibaba could be next in sights once TikTok dealt with

  
  Analysis

Weekend news of Trump giving a new deadline to ByuteDance to sell off TokTok:

  • Trump has given Chinese firm ByteDance 90 days to offload its TikTok app
Trump was asked if there whether there were other China-owned companies he was considering a ban on (Alibaba was used as an example),:
  • “Well, we’re looking at other things, yes” Trump relied
Alibaba is one of the world’s largest retail and internet conglomerates. It has not been has been overly successful outside of China and Asia though, like TikTok has.
US-China relations took another blow over the weekend, the scheduled phase one review talks between the two countries were postponed, with no new data for the talks set.
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