Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Overnight

Mixed is as mixed does and Asian stocks took a hit Thursday after China's growth numbers once again disappointed raising concerns about Chinese exports and the globe's second largest economy.

Couple that with the Brexit fallout, the U.S. election that is is really quite simple but pundits continue to make it difficult to understand and of late the mess in German banks that apparently goes beyond just Deustche Bank, the larges bank in the EU's largest economy.Investors went into their risk off mood after the Chinese export numbers came out and revived the possible in many minds that China could ramp up a beggar thy neighbor move by weakening the yuan.

 The Nikkei was off -0.36%, the Hang Send gave up -1.12%,the Kospi -0.49% and the ASX 200 was down -0.89%. In other markets, concerns over the health of Thailand's king sent the market there down 1.1%  after dropping 6% in the previous session.

OPEC sent a shot across the oil prices scene by noting its recent output hit an eight year high in September, further increasing doubts about any cohesive undertaking to cut production In the
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude slipped 1.1 percent to trade at $49.62 a barrel while on the gold front the yellow metal stabilized around the $1,250 per ounce level after falling sharply last week.

In the currencies market, the yen strengthened against the dollar partly on the minutes of the Fed's last FOMC meeting where most of the voting members opted to wait for further date even those many believe the case for a rate hike has increased. In the UK the pound remained stable as word that Prime Minister May softened her stance on  setting the Brexit date hit the news, offering to give lawmakers an input on those plans..


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