S&P futures gave up early gains and were trading down -0.2%, as Donald Trump completes his first Asian tour and as pressure mounts on U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, sending the pound plunging. European stocks fell, tracking many Asian shares as the Nikkei plunge accelerated.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 fell as much as 0.4%, resuming last week’s pull-back. 17 of 19 industry groups fall, with financial services, retail and banking shares leading the selloff; the broad European index is down 2.7% from the intraday high hit on Nov. 1. The Stoxx 600 drop also triggered a key technical level, with the Stoxx 600 sliding below the 50-DMA for first time since early September, while the Stoxx 600 Bank index dropped below the 200 DMA following a downgrade of European banks by Kepler Cheuvreux.
“Nothing has changed in the past few weeks in terms of fundamentals. Investors are just looking for excuses to book some profits after what has been a pretty strong year,” Fabrice Masson, head of equities at BFT Investment Managers, told Bloomberg: “Some of the stocks have risen 50% since the start of the year. If their earnings are good but don’t show a clear acceleration in the trend, it’s tempting to just sell.”
Well, something did change: earlier in the session, investment bank Kepler downgraded European stocks to underweight, saying last week’s pull-back marks the point at which equity markets shift from “buy-on-dip” to “sell-on-strength.”
In equities, the big mover overnight was Japan, where shares slumped and the Nikkei 225 tumbled by 1.3%, down to 22,380.99, its biggest drop since April 6, as investors found no new reasons to buy after driving benchmarks to their highest in a quarter century just one week ago. The Nikkei is now down 4.3% from the intraday high on Nov. 9. The Topix index slid for a third day and the Nikkei 225 retreated for a fourth session following gains last week that pushed them to levels unseen since 1991 and 1992 respectively. A combination of solid quarterly results, positive economic data and massive foreign buying had driven the rally. U.S. shares fell Friday after U.S. consumer sentiment data unexpectedly dropped by the most in a year amid expectations for faster inflation and higher interest rates.
“Investors who were hoping for the market to stage a rebound during the day may have sold in disappointment towards the end” exacerbating the decline, said Naoki Fujiwara, chief fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “With corporate results behind us and no major economic data in sight, the market is in for a tussle between those waiting to buy and those trying to take profits.” The benchmark indexes finished at the day’s lows as declines accelerated in the last half hour of trading. “Stock futures, which started declining in late afternoon, dragged down stocks and the leveraged funds,” said Mitsuo Shimizu, deputy general manager at Japan Asia Securities. Next Funds Nikkei 225 Leveraged Index ETF, an exchange traded fund product managed by Nomura Holdings Inc., fell 2.7% , the most since April 6. As investors and market observers try to gauge the extent of a downward correction in domestic equities that begun late last week, optimism has yet to fade among some participants.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘correction’ — it’s too tough to predict these markets,” Chris Ailman, chief investment officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. Markets have gotten ahead of themselves and “I’ll call it a pause to refresh.” The yen is a concern, but the fund is very optimistic about Abenomics and in favor of Japan’s corporate governance overhauls, he added.
Elsewhere in Asia, equities also retreated, with industrial and material shares leading declines, after tax-cut pessimism weighed on U.S. equities Friday. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 0.6% to 170.25, falling for a second trading day. Industrial stocks led losses, dropping the most in almost a year. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. fell the most among South Korean shipyards after losing an offshore order to a Singapore rival. Iida Group Holdings Co. plunged by record in Tokyo after first-half results missed the company’s targets. “Uncertainties over U.S. tax cuts are prompting investors to take profit after big rallies in the last few weeks,” said Linus Yip, Hong Kong-based strategist at First Shanghai Securities.South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.3% to close at its highest in almost a decade after reversing an earlier loss.
Curiously, the Shanghai Composite ignored the noise from its neighbors, and staged an impressive comeback, closing up 0.4% at 3,447, the highest level in 22 months, led by banks, steelmakers and chipmakers.
More interesting, however, was the plunge in China’s government bonds: the 10Y yield rose to the highest level in 3 years, while 10-yr treasury futures plunged 0.67%, the biggest since the end of October, as bond yields kept climbing and the curve kept inverting with the 5-year yield breaking 4% at one point this morning, while the 10-yr yield approaches 4%.
In FX, the big mover was the pound, which came under heavy selling pressure as the U.K.’s political and Brexit troubles mount (see below); the dollar inched modestly higher, shrugging off stronger Treasuries; Gilts pushed higher from the open, providing support as European bonds gained across the board; the euro and the yen steadied on gamma trading.
The UK Brexit drama reached new heights over the weekend. As discussed earlier, 40 Conservative MP’s are reportedly calling for UK PM May to step down. This number is 8 short of the amount required to trigger a leadership challenge Other sources also suggest that UK PM May is facing a rebellion from pro-European Tory MPs who have vowed to vote against her “crass” plans to enshrine the date the Britain leaves the European Union in law. Sources suggest that a menacing secret memo from Boris Johnson & Michael Gove to UK PM May dictating terms for a hard Brexit has triggered a new Cabinet rift. Britain must not cave in to EU demands for a bigger Brexit divorce bill after Brussels set a two-week deadline for the UK to concede, allies of Boris Johnson have warned. Brexit Secretary Davis stated that he still believes that a trade deal with the EU can be negotiated within the given timeframe. However, separately, Chief EU Brexit Negotiator Barnier noted that the EU is preparing for possible collapse of Brexit talks.
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