U.S. RELEIF PACKAGE TAKES ANOTHER HIT/DELAY
The U.S. equity futures seemed to have gathered some gains/steam into the trading before pinged back from its modest gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 375.88 points at 2,7772.76, the S&P 500 fell 47.66 points to 3,360.97 while the Nasdaq Composite lost 177.88 points to 11,154.60. All due to President Donald Trump saying there would be no more stimulus talks until after the election. Markets had seemed to be holding up fine for most of the day with job openings numbers coming in better than expected but still lower than the previous month. Eyes and ears will be locked into minutes of the Sept. 15-16 meeting of the FOMC which could be especially fruitful for Fed watchers, beginning with details of the debate on conditions necessary to trigger a rate increase.
The European markets have opened today with a bit of mixed sentiments as investors continue to digest news that President Donald Trump may be ending negotiations over a new coronavirus aid package. The DAX futures in Germany has seemingly traded 0.9% higher, the CAC 40 futures inn France has fallen 0.2% while the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K seems to remain flat. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday that the fresh bout of Covid-19 risks seem to be delaying the euro zone’s economic recovery and now fear that the containment measures that have to be taken by authorities will have to be done at its best to help impact the recovery. The latest German industrial production release put this into perspective, falling 0.2% in August compared with the expected 1.5% gain.
Oil retreated after President Donald Trump said he’s halting stimulus talks until after the election and as an industry report signaled U.S. crude stockpiles rose for the first time in four weeks. U.S. crude inventories expanded by 951,000 barrels last week, according to people familiar with the figures. Government data is due Wednesday. West Texas Intermediate crude slid 1.8% to $39.93 a barrel. Brent for December settlement slid 1.1% to $42.20 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange after adding 3.3% in the previous session.
In the SSA sphere, the likes of NGERIA, GHANA & ANGOLA ended the day on a positive note as we a +1.22, +0.75 & +1.80 respectively in prices with oil looking higher during most of the day and initial optimism over the U.S stimulus packages. The risk-on sentiments in the Eurobond SSA sphere looks to continue into the day with oil opening higher.