The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges are closed for the Qingming (clear brightness festival) holiday, but it is from China unexpected good news arrives. The Beijing authorities have eliminated the rule that prohibited Chinese companies listed on other exchanges from allowing accounting inspections by non-Chinese surveillance agencies.
270 Chinese companies avoid expulsion
The issue of accounting controls was one of the battlegrounds between the two superpowers: 270 Chinese companies listed on Wall Street risked expulsion from the US Stock Exchange by 2024. In short, an unfortunately rare sign of easing which produced the immediate rise in Hong Kong (+1,3%), with much higher cues for tech stocks.
The other eastern squares moved little: Nikkei of Tokyo unchanged. Kospi of Seoul +0,3%. S&P ASX200 of Sydney +0,4%. BSE sensex of Mumbai +1%.
Wall Street futures down slightly, more room for rate hikes
Wall Street futures are down slightly this morning. The 2,41-year Treasury Note trades at 3%, +2,47 basis points. The biennial is at 50%. March jobs data provided further arguments for the Federal Reserve on Friday as it struggled to fight rampant inflation. John Williams, head of the New York Fed, said a sequence of steps will bring rates to more normal levels. Mary Daly believes a XNUMX point rate hike is likely.
Artemis 1 at the start: man returns to the moon (to stay there)
NASA will hold one of the last tests today in view of the launch of the Artemis 1 program, which involves returning to the Moon in preparation for landing on Mars. Axiom's AX-1, the first entirely private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, will depart from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday.
Better football than Petrobras (90 billion dollars)
Light news in a tragic picture. Rodolfo Landim, the manager appointed by Jair Bolsonaro to take over the reins of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant (90 billion dollars in capitalization) gave up his job last night after his football team, Flamengo, was beaten for 2-1 from Fluminense in the final of the Rio State championship. “I don't have time for oil – he said – I have to redo the club”.
Europe prepares sanctions after Bucha
The news arriving from Europe, and in particular, is much more tragic from the Bucha enclave, a battered suburb of Kiev, now at the center of probable sanctions from the European Union and NATO. The range of possibilities includes new interventions on access to international payments by Russian banks, the ban on ships entering Western ports and the blocking of the supply of materials and technological equipment. But from Berlin, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht says it's time to start to talk seriously about energy sanctions, including the CNG ban already approved by Lithuania. However, the action of Brussels will be hampered by the outcome of the Hungarian elections, swept by Victor Orban.
Euro unchanged, oil down
THEeuro is unchanged at 1,104.
Petroleum WTI down slightly to $99 a barrel. Lithuania has blocked imports of Russian gas.
Gold at 1.923, little moved.
The futures of wheat rebound after worst week in eleven years.
The stop to Russian gas is under discussion, the Fed and ECB minutes arrive
The trend of the German trade balance and the orders of durable goods in the USA are the most important macro data in a day without indications from China.
But attention is focused on the prospect of new sanctions against Moscow that could emerge from today's meeting of the Eurogroup and the threat to cut gas supplies, while the race of many materials such as steel and aluminum continues (+46% for commodity index over the past twelve months). The PMI services data for Europe will also be released tomorrow.
Investors will be eyeing the minutes of the Fed and the ECB (out Wednesday and next Thursday). US minutes should confirm upcoming May hike, likely half a point in one go as markets price in immediate Fed tightening and long-term growth blowback as yield curve inverts
The Frankfurt publication, on the other hand, will allow us to better understand the strength of the Central Bank's hawks who insist on bringing forward the timing of a rate hike, in line with the exponential growth of market yields. But it is very difficult to reconcile the fight against the recession with a tightening.
Tomorrow the Def, Franco's caution
“We will come out with a cautious forecast on GDP, because there is enormous uncertainty. Like last year, it's better to be proven wrong for being pessimistic than too optimistic”. Thus the Minister of Economy, Daniele Franco, anticipated the premises of the next Def to be released tomorrow.
Italian growth, according to Confindustria, will not go beyond 1,9% while the government sees, for now, +2,8% (much below the +4% prior to the Ukrainian invasion). Franco reiterated his willingness to combine any new support measures (he did not exclude them for the energy sector) with accounting discipline: "Last year - he recalled - we closed with a much lower deficit than previous forecasts and this year the deficit still needs to be reduced”.
