Morning Briefing
China reports 17 dead from new coronavirus, up from 6 yesterday, but markets say it’s no big deal
Even as the death toll in China from the new coronavirus continues to rise, global financial markets are reacting like everything is under control. My way to track the market reaction is to follow shares of China Southern Airlines (ZNH), the largest airline in China...
Stocks fall, Treasuries climb on signs that respiratory virus in China is now spreading person to person
News that a mysterious respiratory virus in China has infected medical workers, a sign that the virus has entered a new phase wherein it spreads from person to person, rocked Asian financial markets today. The death toll has climbed to six and China today raised the...
China economy headed to “stable,” U.S. forecast to relative slip
China's economy grew by 6.1% in 2019. That's down from 6.6% in 2018. But the 2019 figure meets the government's target, and December industrial output rose 6.9% year over year, ahead of the 5.9% forecast by economists. Retail sales climbed by 8% against a forecast of...
With a China trade truce in place, the U.S.-European trade war moves to front burner
Well, that certainly didn't take long. With the ink barely dry on the Part 1 trade agreement between the United States and China, the European Union said that the deal could violate the rules of the World Trade Organization. EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said his...
Now that the U.S. and China have signed that Part 1 trade deal, let the second guessing begin
The United States and China signed a Part 1 trade deal today that contained little in the way of positive surprises and an expected lack of detail. As analysts and economists struggled to fill in the blanks, much of the deeper dive wound up stressing the negatives in...
Good earnings news from JPMorgan Chase and bad holiday retail news balance out today
This morning JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Â reported that fourth quarter earnings jumped 21% with annual earnings for 2019 rising to a record $36.4 billion. Chalk this one up to a rebound in trading revenue, especially fixed income trading where revenue came in $1 billion...
The Trend is strong, it is–at least for the next two weeks
Today has continued a pattern that emerged last week. With the odds improving that the United States and China will sign a Part 1 trade agreement on Wednesday (or so), the risk on, momentum stocks that led the market in 2019 have reasserted their leadership....
U.S. economy adds 145,000 jobs in December, misses economist forecasts
The U.S. economy added 145,000 jobs in December That did set a record of 10 years of job growth for the economy. But the 145,000 job growth in December was below the 256,000 added in November and below the 160,000 expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. (I would...
Another debt warning from the World Bank–and it won’t be the last
Today in its semi-annual report Global Economic Prospect, the World Bank warned, again, of the risk of a new global debt crisis as a result of the biggest buildup in borrowing  in the past 50 years. Of the four waves of debt accumulation since the 1970s, the current...
Market says U.S.-Iran crisis is over–for a day, anyway
After last night's Iranian attack on the U.S. troops stationed at two Iraqi airbases and a relatively restrained morning message from U.S. President Donald Trump, financial markets have decided to take profits in oil and cybersecurity stocks today. And wait for the...
U.S. service economy keeps roaring ahead in latest ISM survey
The U.S. manufacturing sector may be in deep and continued contraction, but according to the Institute for Supply Management's Purchasing Managers Non-manufacturing Index, the U.S. service sector--the bulk of the U.S. economy--hit a four-month high in December. The...Jim’s Stock Alerts
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