- Wall Street sentiment weakened after yesterday's results from Alphabet, Tesla and Visa. Oil inventories (API) also came in well below forecasts, although WTI crude erased some of the initial gains and is trading at $77 per barrel, with Brent Crude at $81; so in the end, the rebound is not very large. Crude inventories fell by -3.9 million barrels vs. -2.47 million forecast and -4.4 million previously; gasoline inventories fell by more than -2.8 million barrels after a 365,000-barrel increase previously
- Despite better-than-forecast second-quarter results, Alphabet shares erased 3% gains in after-hours trading and are now losing more than 2%. Google Cloud revenue rose nearly 29% y/y to $10.35 billion; all, key measures of growth performed well. Only YouTube revenue fell short of expectations. Earnings per share and revenue exceeded Wall Street expectations
- Tesla's shares are deepening their sell-off, already losing nearly 8% after a disappointing Q2 profit drop. The company expects to deliver far fewer cars this year than in 2023. Revenues beat expectations, but earnings per share came in a lot weaker. Despite solid quarterly results, Visa is losing more than 3%; the company indicated that it sees some macroeconomic pressure on the horizon
- Sentiment in Asian markets was noticeably weaker today. Japan's Nikkei and Topix benchmarks lost more than -1%, Chinese indices also traded under the dash. The Hang Seng Index lost -0.7% and fell to levels not seen since late April. Also, futures on European indices point to lower stock market session opening in Europe today
- Japan's flash manufacturing PMI for July fell to 49.2 versus 50.5 forecast and 50 in the reading for June. Australia's PMI came in at 47.4 versus 47.2 in June, but the index for services fell to 50.8 versus 51.2 the previous month.
- The USDJPY exchange rate overnight rose above 155 for the first time since June; investors are pricing in a slight chance of a BoJ rate hike in the next few months, or at the bank's meeting next week. Ultimately, however, the pair is losing again, and is now down nearly 0.6% thanks to the strengthening yen. NZD weakened today; lower yields reduced 'carry trade' on New Zealand currency
- Gold and silver contracts gain slightly; agricultural commodities are trading overwhelmingly under pressure
- Investors are waiting today for a series of flash manufacturing and services PMI readings from major European economies and the United States for July (US S&P PMI scheduled 2:45 PM BST) as well as for the BoC decision (also at 2:45 PM BST)
- EURUSD is trading flat, at 1.085; yesterday US 10 year treasuries yields grew only slightly by 0.0002
- Bitcoin has settled below $66,000, and Ethereum is losing almost 0.8%, with the price falling below $3440 despite a successful start to ETF trading
- Investors on Polymarket estimate Trump's chances of winning the election at around 62% vs. 32% for Kamala Harris
