OVERNIGHT MARKETS AND NEWS
March E-mini S&Ps (ESH16 -1.31%) are down -1.12% at a 2-week low and European stocks are down -2.11% at a 15-1/2 month low on global economic concerns. Weakness in crude oil and in copper pushed energy producers and mining stocks lower, while the cost of insuring the debt of European financial companies rose as the Markit iTraxx Europe Senior Financial Index of credit-default swaps climbed +11 bp to 132 bp, the highest in 2-3/4 years. A loss of confidence is another negative for European stocks after the Eurozone Feb Sentix investor confidence fell more than expected to the lowest in 13 months. The weakness in stocks and signs of distress in the European corporate bond market fueled a surge of safe-haven buying of government debt that pushed Germany’s 2-year note yield down to a record low -0.506% (data since 1990) and the yield on the German 10-year bund down to 0.247%, a 9-1/4 month low. Asian stocks settled mixed: Japan +1.10%, Australia -0.02%, India -1.34% with Hong Kong, China Taiwan Singapore and South Korea closed for holiday. Japanese stocks bucked the trend and closed higher as a rally exporters led the overall market higher after Friday’s U.S. Jan payrolls report boosted the dollar against the yen and improved the earnings prospects of Japanese exporters.
The dollar index (DXY00 +0.17%) is up +0.19%. EUR/USD (^EURUSD) is down -0.29%. USD/JPY (^USDJPY) is down -0.27%.
Mar T-note prices (ZNH16 +0.26%) are up +6 ticks.
The Eurozone Feb Sentix investor confidence fell -3.6 to 6.0, weaker than expectations of -2.2 to 7.4 and the lowest in 13 months.
U.S. STOCK PREVIEW
Key U.S. news today includes: (1) no U.S. economic reports.
There are 6 of the S&P 500 companies that report earnings today: Diamond Offshore Drilling (consensus $0.52), Lowes (0.61), Cognizant Technology (0.78), Hasbro (1.300), Twenty-First Century Fox (0.44), Owens-Illinois (0.40).
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