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Week Ahead – What Can We Expect After This Crazy Week?

Week Ahead – Market Recovery Under Threat?

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This article was originally published by MarketPulse.

FacebookTwitterEmail The New Normal Another crazy week comes and goes and thing that has really stuck with me is how normal the extraordinary suddenly seems. On Thursday, the Dow fell almost 7% and, sure, it was newsworthy but it wasn’t shocking. This is the 22nd biggest ever drop in the index – going back more than 100 years – and yet this year it doesn’t even make the top three. This could be a sign of the fragility that remains in the markets but then, the NASDAQ hit new record highs in each of the prior four days and breached 10,000 for the first time ever. This comes before the end of what could be the worst quarter in a century for the economy. Incredible. Speculation around new waves of coronavirus cases is going nowhere any time soon, as countries look to reopen their economies and save businesses and jobs. But next week also brings a plethora of interest rate decisions as well which means more rate cuts and more asset purchases. In other words, more fuel for the fire. The disconnect between the markets and the global economy isn’t going to improve any time soon. Key Economic Releases and Events Monday 15th June
Time (UK) Country Indicator Name Period
00:01 United Kingdom House Price Rightmove MM May
03:00 China (Mainland) Urban Investment (YTD)YY May
03:00 China (Mainland) Industrial Output YY May
03:00 China (Mainland) Retail Sales YY May
03:30 Singapore Unemployment Rate Final SA Q1
Indonesia Trade Balance (Bln of $) May
Tuesday 16th June
07:00 United Kingdom Claimant Count Unem Chng May
07:00 United Kingdom ILO Unemployment Rate Apr
07:00 United Kingdom Employment Change Apr
07:00 United Kingdom Avg Wk Earnings 3M YY Apr
07:00 United Kingdom Avg Earnings (Ex-Bonus) Apr
09:30 Hong Kong Unemployment Rate May
10:00 Germany ZEW Economic Sentiment Jun
13:30 United States Retail Sales Ex-Autos MM May
13:30 United States Retail Sales MM May
13:30 United States Retail Ex Gas/Autos May
14:00 Russia Industrial Output May
14:15 United States Industrial Production MM May
14:15 United States Capacity Utilization SA May
14:15 United States Industrial Production YoY May
15:00 United States Business Inventories MM Apr
21:30 United States API weekly crude stocks 8 Jun, w/e
Japan JP BOJ Rate Decision 16 Jun

Wednesday 17th June
00:50 Japan Trade Balance Total Yen May
01:30 Singapore Non-Oil Exports MM May
01:30 Singapore Non-Oil Exports YY May
07:00 United Kingdom Core CPI YY May
07:00 United Kingdom CPI YY May
08:30 Sweden Unemployment Rate May
08:30 Sweden Total Employment May
10:00 Euro Zone Construction Output MM Apr
10:00 Euro Zone HICP Final MM May
10:00 Euro Zone HICP Final YY May
12:00 South Africa Retail Sales YY Mar
13:30 United States Building Permits: Number May
13:30 United States Housing Starts Number May
13:30 Canada CPI Inflation MM May
13:30 Canada CPI Inflation YY May
14:00 Russia GDP YY Quarterly Revised Q4
15:30 United States EIA Weekly Crude Stocks 12 Jun, w/e
23:45 New Zealand GDP Prod Based QQ, SA Q1
23:45 New Zealand GDP Prod Based YY, SA Q1
23:45 New Zealand GDP Prod Based, Ann Avg Q1
23:45 New Zealand GDP Exp Based QQ, SA Q1

Thursday 18th June
02:30 Australia Employment May
02:30 Australia Full Time Employment May
02:30 Australia Participation Rate May
02:30 Australia Unemployment Rate May
08:30 Switzerland SNB Policy Rate Q2
09:00 Norway Key Policy Rate 18 Jun
12:00 United Kingdom BOE Bank Rate Jun
12:00 United Kingdom Asset Purchase Prog Jun
12:00 United Kingdom GB BOE QE Gilts Jun
12:00 United Kingdom GB BOE QE Corp Jun
12:00 United Kingdom BOE MPC Vote Hike Jun
12:00 United Kingdom BOE MPC Vote Unchanged Jun
12:00 United Kingdom BOE MPC Vote Cut Jun
13:30 United States Initial Jobless Claims 8 Jun, w/e
13:30 United States Jobless Claims 4-Wk Avg 8 Jun, w/e
13:30 United States Continued Jobless Claims 1 Jun, w/e
13:30 United States Philly Fed Business Indx Jun
14:00 Russia Cbank Wkly Reserves 8 Jun, w/e
15:00 United States Leading Index Chg MM May
Indonesia 7-Day Reverse Repo Jun
Indonesia Deposit Facility Rate Jun
Indonesia Lending Facility Rate Jun

Friday 19th June
00:30 Japan CPI, Core Nationwide YY May
00:30 Japan CPI, Overall Nationwide May
07:00 United Kingdom Retail Sales MM May
07:00 United Kingdom Retail Sales Ex-Fuel MM May
07:00 United Kingdom Retail Sales YY May
07:00 United Kingdom Retail Sales Ex-Fuel YY May
11:30 Russia Central bank key rate Jun
13:30 Canada Retail Sales MM Apr
13:30 Canada Retail Sales Ex-Autos MM Apr
Russia GDP YY Monthly May
Russia Retail Sales YY May
Russia Unemployment Rate May
Russia Real Wages YY Apr
Country US It seems a second wave of the coronavirus is hitting the US and could very well derail a lot of the reopening momentum that was taking place.  As states reopen and Americans return to pre-pandemic behavior, it is expected that a rise in new coronavirus cases would occur.  The White House is convinced they have yet to see any relationship between reopening and increased cases.  If hospitalizations continue to increase, you could see many individuals decide to remain a part of the stay-at-home economy.  If the virus spread intensifies, restrictions will be tightened and that will put a damper on the economic recovery prospects.   On Tuesday, Fed Chair Powell will follow his downbeat FOMC presser with his semi-annual monetary policy report to the Senate Banking Committee.  With little time between events, it is unlikely for Powell to deviate from Wednesday’s rate decision.  Traders will also pay close attention to the release of US retail sales, which is expected to show a rebound from the record low seen in April.   US Politics Economic jitters and virus concerns will likely push the Trump administration into supporting a second round of stimulus payments for Americans.  Coronavirus relief talks were not supposed to happen until late July, but that should change given the recent jump in cases throughout the country.  On Friday, President Trump returns to the campaign trail in Oklahoma, his first live rally since March.   Democrats are eagerly awaiting former-VP Biden’s decision on his running mate.  Prior to COVID-19, the Democratic National Convention was originally scheduled in July, meaning we should have found out his decision by June.  Since the convention was delayed till August 17th, he will have more time to evaluate his candidates.  Biden will turn 78 a few weeks after the election, so his VP selection will be critical for many voters. UK The UK experienced its sharpest contraction on record in April, the first full month of the lockdown. The economy contracted by 20.4% at the start of the second quarter which is expected to be the worst month of the three.  Next week the Bank of England is expected to increase its bond buying in response to the pandemic, with £100-200 billion added to its quantitative easing program. This comes as government borrowing spikes to fund the crisis which would have otherwise risked pushing up borrowing costs. Brexit High level talks between Boris Johnson and Ursula Von Der Leyen are expected to take place next week, possibly as early as Monday, as the two sides look to reconcile the significant differences ahead of the 31 December transition expiry. As it stands, no deal is the default and the UK is expected to formally rule out an extension once again. We’ve seen this all before though and compromise tends to come late in the day. Still, business could very much do without this in a pandemic year. Russia The Central Bank of Russia is expected to cut interest rates by 50-100 basis points when it meets next week, from 5.5% where it currently stands. Like many others, the economy has been ravaged by the coronavirus crisis and contracted 12% in April, and May is not expected to be any better. Switzerland The SNB is not expected to cut interest rates next week, with the main policy rate remaining at -0.75%. The central bank is active in FX markets, with its holdings of foreign currencies recently rising above 800 billion Swiss francs – greater than the output of its economy – as it seeks to stop the currency rising too far as a result of safe haven flows. The central bank hasn’t set an official floor for the EURCHF pair – hopefully learning lessons of the past – but 1.05 is believed to represent the informal level.  Norway The Norges Bank is not expected to cut interest rates next week, with the main policy rate currently sitting at 0%. China China Industrial Production (4.5%E) and Retail Sales (-2.0%E) on Monday. Poor number could see Asian markets weaken depending on Wall Street’s friday performance. Ongoing tensions with the US over HK, trade and Covid-19.  No other significant data this week. Hong Kong Protests have died down for now over the securities law. Possible resurgence this weekend. HSBC and Stan Chart under fire for backing China’s HK security law. No significant data this week. India Economy continues reopening but Covid-19 cases are spiking, markets negative. Standoff with China continues in the Himalayas but negotiations continue. Australia Australian stocks and Australian Dollar sold heavily on equity correction into the week’s end. Negative results on Friday for Wall Street should see that trend continue into the first part of the week. Australian markets are among most vulnerable to deep bull market correction. RBA minutes Tuesday. Will look for talk about negative interest rates.Potentially bullish for stocks. Unemployment Thursday (6.9% E) will drive intraday volatility. Otherwise what happens in the US will drive sentiment. Japan BOJ policy meeting Tuesday. Unchanged at -0.10% but looking out for more stimulus measures. Stocks positive. Tankan and Trade Balance Wednesday. Unlikely to impact markets. Markets will be led by Wall Street after sell-offs this week. Market Oil Oil didn’t escape yesterday’s backlash, with crude falling more than 5% on apparent fears around rising case numbers. Again, we have to take this in the context of an asset class that has done rather well over the last couple of months. It’s been some rebound and I think some serious profit taking may have kicked in. It’s creeping higher again today but $40 may remain an upside barrier for WTI. Gold Gold has been range-bound for the last couple of months since it first tried to break $1,750 only to quickly run out of steam. It’s tried again a few times since, each as unsuccessful as the last, and it looks to be suffering the same fate again this time. It’s pushing a little higher again as it looks to capitalize on dollar weakness but we could see it run into difficulties once again, unless the greenback continues its journey south.

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Fighting the Surveillance State Begins with the Individual

It’s a well-known fact at this point that in the United States and most of the so-called free countries that there is a robust surveillance state in…

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It’s a well-known fact at this point that in the United States and most of the so-called free countries that there is a robust surveillance state in place, collecting data on the entire populace. This has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by people like Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower who exposed that the NSA was conducting mass surveillance on US citizens and the world as a whole. The NSA used applications like those from Prism Systems to piggyback on corporations and the data collection their users had agreed to in the terms of service. Google would scan all emails sent to a Gmail address to use for personalized advertising. The government then went to these companies and demanded the data, and this is what makes the surveillance state so interesting. Neo-Marxists like Shoshana Zuboff have dubbed this “surveillance capitalism.” In China, the mass surveillance is conducted at a loss. Setting up closed-circuit television cameras and hiring government workers to be a mandatory editorial staff for blogs and social media can get quite expensive. But if you parasitically leech off a profitable business practice it means that the surveillance state will turn a profit, which is a great asset and an even greater weakness for the system. You see, when that is what your surveillance state is predicated on you’ve effectively given your subjects an opt-out button. They stop using services that spy on them. There is software and online services that are called “open source,” which refers to software whose code is publicly available and can be viewed by anyone so that you can see exactly what that software does. The opposite of this, and what you’re likely already familiar with, is proprietary software. Open-source software generally markets itself as privacy respecting and doesn’t participate in data collection. Services like that can really undo the tricky situation we’ve found ourselves in. It’s a simple fact of life that when the government is given a power—whether that be to regulate, surveil, tax, or plunder—it is nigh impossible to wrestle it away from the state outside somehow disposing of the state entirely. This is why the issue of undoing mass surveillance is of the utmost importance. If the government has the power to spy on its populace, it will. There are people, like the creators of The Social Dilemma, who think that the solution to these privacy invasions isn’t less government but more government, arguing that data collection should be taxed to dissuade the practice or that regulation needs to be put into place to actively prevent abuses. This is silly to anyone who understands the effect regulations have and how the internet really works. You see, data collection is necessary. You can’t have email without some elements of data collection because it’s simply how the protocol functions. The issue is how that data is stored and used. A tax on data collection itself will simply become another cost of doing business. A large company like Google can afford to pay a tax. But a company like Proton Mail, a smaller, more privacy-respecting business, likely couldn’t. Proton Mail’s business model is based on paid subscriptions. If there were additional taxes imposed on them, it’s possible that they would not be able to afford the cost and would be forced out of the market. To reiterate, if one really cares about the destruction of the surveillance state, the first step is to personally make changes to how you interact with online services and to whom you choose to give your data.

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Stock Market Today: Stocks turn higher as Treasury yields retreat; big tech earnings up next

A pullback in Treasury yields has stocks moving higher Monday heading into a busy earnings week and a key 2-year bond auction later on Tuesday.

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Updated at 11:52 am EDT U.S. stocks turned higher Monday, heading into the busiest earnings week of the year on Wall Street, amid a pullback in Treasury bond yields that followed the first breach of 5% for 10-year notes since 2007. Investors, however, continue to track developments in Israel's war with Hamas, which launched its deadly attack from Gaza three weeks ago, as leaders around the region, and the wider world, work to contain the fighting and broker at least a form of cease-fire. Humanitarian aid is also making its way into Gaza, through the territory's border with Egypt, as officials continue to work for the release of more than 200 Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attack. Those diplomatic efforts eased some of the market's concern in overnight trading, but the lingering risk that regional adversaries such as Iran, or even Saudi Arabia, could be drawn into the conflict continues to blunt risk appetite. Still, the U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global currencies and acts as the safe-haven benchmark in times of market turmoil, fell 0.37% in early New York trading 105.773, suggesting some modest moves into riskier assets. The Japanese yen, however, eased past the 150 mark in overnight dealing, a level that has some traders awaiting intervention from the Bank of Japan and which may have triggered small amounts of dollar sales and yen purchases. In the bond market, benchmark 10-year note yields breached the 5% mark in overnight trading, after briefly surpassing that level late last week for the first time since 2007, but were last seen trading at 4.867% ahead of $141 billion in 2-year, 5-year and 7-year note auctions later this week. Global oil prices were also lower, following two consecutive weekly gains that has take Brent crude, the global pricing benchmark, firmly past $90 a barrel amid supply disruption concerns tied to the middle east conflict. Brent contracts for December delivery were last seen $1.06 lower on the session at $91.07 per barrel while WTI futures contract for the same month fell $1.36 to $86.72 per barrel. Market volatility gauges were also active, with the CBOE Group's VIX index hitting a fresh seven-month high of $23.08 before easing to $20.18 later in the session. That level suggests traders are expecting ranges on the S&P 500 of around 1.26%, or 53 points, over the next month. A busy earnings week also indicates the likelihood of elevated trading volatility, with 158 S&P 500 companies reporting third quarter earnings over the next five days, including mega cap tech names such as Google parent Alphabet  (GOOGL) - Get Free Report, Microsoft  (MSFT) - Get Free Report, retail and cloud computing giant Amazon  (AMZN) - Get Free Report and Facebook owner Meta Platforms  (META) - Get Free Report. "It’s shaping up to be a big week for the market and it comes as the S&P 500 is testing a key level—the four-month low it set earlier this month," said Chris Larkin, managing director for trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley. "How the market responds to that test may hinge on sentiment, which often plays a larger-than-average role around this time of year," he added. "And right now, concerns about rising interest rates and geopolitical turmoil have the potential to exacerbate the market’s swings." Heading into the middle of the trading day on Wall Street, the S&P 500, which is down 8% from its early July peak, the highest of the year, was up 10 points, or 0.25%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which slumped into negative territory for the year last week, was marked 10 points lower while the Nasdaq, which fell 4.31% last week, was up 66 points, or 0.51%. In overseas markets, Europe's Stoxx 600 was marked 0.11% lower by the close of Frankfurt trading, with markets largely tracking U.S. stocks as well as the broader conflict in Israel. In Asia, a  slump in China stocks took the benchmark CSI 300 to a fresh 2019 low and pulled the region-wide MSCI ex-Japan 0.72% lower into the close of trading.
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iPhone Maker Foxconn Investigated By Chinese Authorities

Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufactures iPhones on behalf of Apple (AAPL), is being investigated by Chinese authorities, according to multiple…

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Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufactures iPhones on behalf of Apple (AAPL), is being investigated by Chinese authorities, according to multiple media reports. Foxconn’s business has been searched by Chinese authorities and China’s main tax authority has conducted inspections of Foxconn’s manufacturing operations in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu. At the same time, China’s natural-resources department has begun onsite investigations into Foxconn’s land use in Henan and Hubei provinces within China. Foxconn has manufacturing facilities focused on Apple products in three of the Chinese provinces where authorities are carrying out searches. While headquartered in Taiwan, Foxconn has a huge manufacturing presence in China and is a large employer in the nation of 1.4 billion people. The investigations suggest that China is ramping up pressure on the company as Foxconn considers major investments in India, and as presidential elections approach in Taiwan. Foxconn founder Terry Gou said in August of this year that he intends to run for the Taiwanese presidency. He has resigned from the company’s board of directors but continues to hold a 12.5% stake in the company. Gou is currently in fourth place in the polls ahead of the election that is scheduled to be held in January 2024. The potential impact on Apple and its iPhone manufacturing comes amid rising political tensions between politicians in Washington, D.C. and Beijing. Apple’s stock has risen 16% over the last 12 months and currently trades at $172.88 U.S. per share.  

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