Call: 1-204-414-9106
Black Friday online sales top $9 billion in new record
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/26/black-friday-online-sales-top-9-billion-in-new-record.html
China’s factory activity at lowest reading since April; Hong Kong stocks briefly rise 2%
Asia-Pacific shares were mostly higher on Wednesday as the reading for China’s November factory activity fell short of expectations, dropping to the lowest reading since April 2022.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index briefly rose 2% in its final hour of trade, with the Hang Seng Tech index trading 2.66% higher. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite closed little changed at 3,151.34, while the Shenzhen Component gained 0.176% to 11,108.50.
Chinese health officials on Tuesday announced measures to boost vaccination among the elderly, an indicator which is seen as important for reopening the economy, while saying it is “closely watching the virus” for developments when asked if the ongoing unrest would lead to a shift in its zero-Covid policy.
| TICKER | COMPANY | NAME | PRICE | CHANGE | %CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .N225 | Nikkei 225 Index | *NIKKEI | 27968.99 | -58.85 | -0.21 |
| .HSI | Hang Seng Index | *HSI | 18597.23 | 392.55 | 2.16 |
| .AXJO | S&P/ASX 200 | *ASX 200 | 7284.2 | 30.9 | 0.43 |
| .SSEC | Shanghai | *SHANGHAI | 3151.34 | 1.59 | 0.05 |
| .KS11 | KOSPI Index | *KOSPI | 2472.53 | 39.14 | 1.61 |
| .FTFCNBCA | CNBC 100 ASIA IDX | *CNBC 100 | 7878.19 | 57.84 | 0.74 |
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 pared earlier losses and traded 0.43% higher after its monthly inflation indicator showed some slowing for October, and closed at 7,284.20. The Nikkei 225 shed 0.21% to 27,968.99 and the Topix slipped 0.37% to 1,985.57.
South Korea’s Kospi reversed losses to rise 1.61% to 2,472.53. The MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.18%.
Japan’s Fast Retailing and electric-vehicle maker Xpeng are set to report earnings, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be delivering a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
Overnight in the U.S., major indexes ended the session lower.
China could reopen in March, but zero-Covid has shaken confidence in supply chains, economist says
Stock futures rise as Wall Street awaits Fed Chair Powell’s speech
Stock futures rose Wednesday as Wall Street awaits a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 38 points, or 0.14%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.
Powell will give a speech at the Brookings Institution that may give insight into the central bank’s thinking on future increases. The Fed is slated to meet later this month and is largely expected to deliver a smaller 0.5 percentage point rate hike after four consecutive 0.75 percentage point increases to tame high inflation. A pause in rate hikes, or a pivot would likely send markets higher.
“This is a Fed-made recession, so eventually when he does pivot, the market should move higher pretty quickly,” said Steve Grasso, CEO of Grasso Global, on CNBC’s “Fast Money.”
Wall Street is coming off a mixed session. The Nasdaq Composite shed 0.59% and the S&P 500 lost 0.16%, their third negative day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a marginal gain, closing 3.07 points, or 0.01%, higher.
Stocks have been weighed down by China’s zero-Covid policy and have failed to fully recover from losses even as the country announced steps toward reopening, such as an uptick in vaccination rates for the elderly.
On the data front, the ADP private payrolls report will come out Wednesday, as will the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for October. Pending home sales and the Fed’s Beige Book will also be released Wednesday, giving further clues about the state of the U.S. economy.
Earnings season continues as well, with Salesforce, Petco and Five Below on deck.
Oil up on China COVID hopes, but OPEC+ output concerns offset gains
Oil rose on Tuesday on expectations for a loosening of China’s strict COVID-19 controls, but concerns that OPEC+ would keep its output unchanged at its upcoming meeting limited gains.
Brent crude futures settled at $83.03 a barrel, losing 16 cents, or 0.2%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled at $78.20 a barrel, up 96 cents, or 1.2%.
Chinese health officials said the country plans to speed up COVID-19 vaccinations for elderly people, aiming to overcome a key stumbling block in efforts to ease unpopular “zero-COVID” curbs.
“The prospect of a return to normality, in an economy that is the world’s largest oil importer, was enough to make oil prices jump in the first significant price rebound of the last two weeks,” said ActivTrades analyst Ricardo Evangelista.
Rare street protests in cities across China over the weekend targeted President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy and were the strongest public defiance during his political career, China analysts said.
Weakness in the U.S. dollar, which tends to trade inversely with oil, also helped to boost crude prices. The dollar index has fallen to 106.65 from a 20-year high as investors look toward the Federal Reserve reaching a peak rate early next year with inflation pressures expected to ease.
″(The) strong rebound is being furthered by a weakening in the U.S. dollar and a need to discount some loss of Russian crude availability via next week’s scheduled initiation of sanctions,” said Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates.
Oil prices, however, were hampered by concerns that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, would not adjust their output plans at their next meeting on Dec. 4.
Five OPEC+ sources said OPEC+ is likely to keep oil output policy unchanged at its Sunday meeting, while two sources said an additional production cut was also likely to be considered. Neither, however, thought another cut was highly likely.
The meeting, planned as an in-person gathering, may be made a partly or fully virtual event, sources said, which added to worries that a cut was not imminent.
OPEC+ started to lower its output target by 2 million barrels per day (bpd) in November, aiming to shore up oil prices.
Markets are also assessing the impact of a looming Western price cap on Russian oil.
Diplomats from the Group of Seven (G7) nations and the European Union have been discussing a cap on Russian oil between $65 and $70 a barrel, aiming to limit revenue to fund Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine without disrupting global oil markets.
However, EU governments on Monday failed to agree on the cap, with Poland insisting it should be set lower than the level proposed by the G7, diplomats said.
The price cap is due to come into effect on Dec. 5, and if there is no agreement, the EU is set to implement harsher measures agreed at the end of May – a ban on all Russian crude oil imports from Dec. 5 and on petroleum products from Feb. 5.
Euro zone inflation rate eases slightly to 10% as surge in energy prices slows
Scotiabank reports $2.09B Q4 profit, down from $2.56B a year ago
Scotiabank reported fourth-quarter net income of $2.09 billion, down from $2.56 billion in the same quarter last year.
The first of Canada’s big banks to report its fourth-quarter results said Tuesday the profit amounted to $1.63 per diluted share for the quarter ended Oct. 31, down from $1.97 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $7.63 billion, down from $7.69 billion in its fourth quarter last year.
Provisions for credit losses totalled $529 million, up from $168 million in the same quarter a year ago.
On an adjusted basis, Scotiabank said it earned $2.06 per diluted share, down from an adjusted profit of $2.10 per diluted share a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of $2.00 per share, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.
Scotiabank said its Canadian banking operations earned $1.17 billion in net income in its latest quarter, down from $1.24 billion in the same quarter last year due to an increase in provisions for credit losses in its most recent quarter.
Meanwhile, Scotiabank’s international banking operations earned $679 million in net income in its latest quarter, up from $607 million a year ago.
Global wealth management net income totalled $363 million for the quarter, down from $387 million a year ago, while global banking and markets earned $484 million in net income, down from $502 million in the same quarter last year.
For its full financial year, Scotiabank said its net income totalled $10.17 billion or $8.02 per diluted share on $31.42 billion in revenue, compared with a profit of $9.96 billion or $7.70 per diluted share on $31.25 billion in revenue in the same period a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Scotiabank said it earned $8.50 per diluted share for its full financial year, up from an adjusted profit of $7.87 per diluted share a year earlier.
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, world’s largest active volcano, starts to erupt for first time in nearly four decades
The world’s largest active volcano, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, has started to erupt for the first time in nearly four decades, prompting volcanic ash and debris to fall nearby, authorities said Monday.
The eruption began at approximately 11:30 p.m. Sunday in Moku‘āweoweo, the summit caldera of the Mauna Loa volcano, inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.
As of 2:43 a.m. local time, “the eruption continues at the summit of Mauna Loa,” according to the latest Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Status Report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). “All vents remain restricted to the summit area,” the report said. “However, lava flows in the summit region are visible from Kona. There is currently no indication of any migration of the eruption into a rift zone.”
