The trade deal signing is upon us, no one wins the Dems debate, and the bar is high for big bank results. Happy Big Beautiful Monster Day!Well, it's time. President Donald Trump is poised to sign a phase-one trade deal with China in Washington today, an accord he's recently described as a "big, beautiful monster." There are doubts about that, given its relative lack of substance compared with normal trade deals, but notably it will for the first time punish Beijing if it fails to deliver on pledges related to its currency, intellectual property and the trade balance. Risk markets have taken a glass-half-full approach in the run-up to the signing, though optimism took a knock Tuesday when Bloomberg reported that existing tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods coming into the U.S. are likely to stay in place until after the American presidential election. The Asian nation may find itself continuing to depend on the nimble tactics that have helped it diversify into new markets to weather the trade war. Dems clashBernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren tried unsuccessfully to calm the waters Tuesday after a spat involving elitism, sexism and insinuations of lying, in a wide-ranging debate where the top candidates each enjoyed strong moments without yielding a clear winner. With less than three weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, progressives are starting to fear the Sanders-Warren dispute will pave the way for a moderate like Joe Biden to win the nomination. This was the final debate before Iowa, and was otherwise dominated by war policy in the wake of the showdown between the U.S. and Iran. Here are your top takeaways. JPMorgan sets the bar highBank analysts were bullish on the prospects for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley earnings on Wednesday and Thursday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. set a high bar, reporting better-than-expected trading, particularly in fixed income. Their shares climbed as the CEOs of both lenders hailed the strength of the U.S. consumer. It was all just about enough to distract from Wells Fargo, which slumped the most in more than a year after adjusted earnings per share missed estimates in results that included $1.5 billion of "litigation accruals for a variety of matters, including previously disclosed retail sales practices matters." Bullish marketsOvernight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.4%, with Japan's Topix Index down 0.5%, dragged lower by electronics and telecommunications giants. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index declined 0.1% by 6:13 a.m. Eastern Time as concern over trade tensions lingered before America and China sign their initial accord. S&P 500 futures pointed to a soft open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.79% and gold was up. Coming up…Lots on today, even if the big deal signing doesn't whet your appetite. Mortgage applications data will drop at 7:00 a.m., just an appetizer before the main course: the latest reading of producer prices is due at 8:30 a.m., garnished with a generous helping of Empire manufacturing data. Then, if you have room for dessert, tuck into the Fed's Beige Book, due out at 2:00 p.m. Also today: Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan speaks to the Economic Club of New York. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker talks about "low interest rates and the new normal" at the Harvard Club in New York. What we've been readingThis is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morningFrom time to time, Bitcoiners (or others advocates of cryptocurrencies) suffer delusions of grandeur. They have this fantasy that bankers or central bankers are all quaking in their boots, scared at this decentralized money that they don't control, doing everything in their power to discourage its use. In reality, most people outside of crypto just don't think about it very much. And while Bitcoin has an extremely hardcore following, it remains tiny. The total value of all Bitcoin according to CoinMarketCap.com is less than $160 billion, which is a little bit less than, say, the market cap of Adobe Software. When people who aren't in the space do talk or think about it, they're usually just trying to sound cool, or in some cases they're warning about illegal activity or illegal security offerings. That being said, this makes it all the more noteworthy when someone who's not steeped in the space does talk about it in a serious manner. As I wrote about on Monday, Tracy Alloway and I recently interviewed Maciej Wojtal, a London-based fund manager who invests in the Tehran Stock Exchange. Responding to a question about sanctions, and the difficulty of moving money in and out of the country, he brought up on his own what he sees as the rising use of cryptocurrencies in the country to circumvent banking restrictions. It was notable for two reasons. One is, as mentioned above, here was someone who was not a crypto person bringing it up unprompted in a serious manner. And secondly, this is probably the quintessential use case for them: Circumventing laws that tell people what they can and can't do with their money. So while I still think that many in the space overstate their own impact and importance, nuggets like strike me as significant. 
Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
Post a Comment