Trump trumps Baker-Hughes

Asia

Despite Trump’s announcement of the upcoming Xi visit to Washington, both Japanese and Chinese indexes are closing in the red this morning, the Hang Seng, though, up nearly a full percent. Housing starts in Japan nearly doubled on Friday, shotting past expectations and landing on 10% growth. As Trump meets Japan’s Shinzo Abe, the US president is reportedly trying to pressure Japan into constructing more cars in its US plants. Further south, Australia’s PPI for the year’s 1st quarter declined a tad YoY, as import prices declined by a ½%, with exports increasing by a tenth to 4.5%.

Europe

Thomas Cook this morning reports on one more outcome of Brexit panic – UK tourists are opting for Turkey in place of Greece, as non-EU destinations gain popularity. Meanwhile, Britain’s mortgage approvals added 2%, climbing to 39.98K, but industrial trends are now in negative territory, at -5points. The FTSE lost a 1/10% Friday on closing, as the DAX and Euro Stoxx added a ¼%. In France, consumer confidence failed to increase, as expected, remaining level at 96 in April. Trying to keep a lid on further inter-Union strafe, EU exec Jean-Claude Juncker said that Poland was unlikely to leave the union, despite continuing disagreements on environment and migration.

US

The US economy delivered a spanking 3.2% GDP annualized growth rate in Q1, topping last year’s 2.2 and well past the expected 2 tenths decline. On the other hand, personal consumption for the same period is expected to more than halve from 1.5% to 0.6%. US indexes closed up Friday led by the S&P’s 0.47% rise.

Commodities

Oil failed to respond fittingly to Friday’s 20 rig reduction in the Baker Hughes Count, actually losing $2½ a barrel throughout the day and only regaining a fraction of that as the Asian session took over this morning. At fault, apparently, Donald Trump’s pressure on OPEC producers to make up for the Iranian-sanctioned oil curb. Gold trading failed to breach the 1290 threshold Friday, despite news that the German public now owns over 8900 tons of the metal – 2½ times more than the country’s central bank. For comparison, 25,000 tons of the stuff are currently held in India, and 20,000 tons in China. And Bitcoin on Friday fell below the 5200 support level, making it the crypto’s new resistance barrier. As Litecoin, which provided the entire sector with backwind as it doubled value in Q1, drops to a 3-week low.

Shares

Total, Chevron, Exxon and DetscheBank all reported earnings on Friday, all beating expectations for earnings per share, but – except DeutscheBank – missing by more than 3% on Q1 revenues. Today, Google reports alongside McDonalds, which has gained nearly 127% in stock value over the past 5 years – nearly double the S&P benchmark. With EPS expected to grow 2.4% YoY and revenues by nearly 20%, Google traders should remember that the company has beaten expectations 75% of the time over the past 2 years. And good news for Disney, as Avengers Endgame reports $1.2bn income for its first 5-days of release.

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