We are continuing to see a significant and growing divergence in performance between US and overseas markets. Adding to Monday’s US index gains of 0.4%-0.5% gains, US index futures are all up about 0.2%. Adding to Monday’s losses, the Hang Seng is down 1.6% while the FTSE and Dax are both down about 0.5%.
Yesterday’s soft China GDP and retail sales data continues to drag commodities downward with US Crude Oil falling 1.9% and Copper sliding 0.3%. Gold is up 0.7% and Bitcoin is up 0.9% as traders continue to seek alternative currencies.
Canada housing starts slowed dramatically in June (241K vs street 260K), but this was offset by improving inflation as consumer price growth slowed (2.7% vs previous 2.9%). US retail sales were flat in June, in line with expectations. US housing data starts with the NAHB housing market index due at 10:00 M EDT (street 44). Tomorrow brings UK consumer prices, US housing starts and US industrial production.
Earnings season continues this morning with better than expected results from UnitedHealth, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. The market reaction has been mixed with Bank of America up about 2%, UnitedHealth up marginally, and Morgan Stanley down about 2% in premarket trading. This continues an emerging theme of US stocks trading flat to lower following earnings reports which suggests that with high expectations already built into stock prices, traders may be looking to take profits against news.