S&P futures are fractionally in the red while traders await President Trump’s pick for Fed chair and more clues on the fate of tax reform; Asian stocks slide, European shares are little changed ahead of tomorrow's ECB tapering announcement as US 10Y yields finally break out of their multi-month range below 2.40%...
After reports the iPhone 7 was outselling the iPhone 8 sent Apple’s stock lower on Wednesday, more troubling news about the company’s complication-plagued supply chain for the iPhone X, its special tenth anniversary model, emerged this morning courtesy of Nikkei, which is reporting the company has halved its planned shipments for the number of iPhone X’s it will sell by year’s end to 20 million.
European shares are modestly lower as investors monitor tense events in Spain and as focus turns to Thursday’s ECB meeting; US equity futures have rebounded from yesterday's sharp but shallow selloff and are in the green amid rising odds of U.S. tax reform and the imminent unveiling of the next Fed chair while Asian shares rise and Japan extends its winning streak to a record 16 days. The euro edged higher after data showed Europe’s economy is maintaining momentum, while the USDJPY managed to recover all of yesterday's sharp losses.
In an otherwise quiet session, Sunday's convincing election victory for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition, which gave it another constitution-changing supermajority, pushed the Nikkei to the highest level since 1996, after a record 15 consecutive days of gains - the longest winning streak on record - and sent world stocks to new all-time highs on Monday.
As we’ve reported in the past, skyrocketing wages in mainland China have caused the adoption of robot workers by the country’s manufacturers to accelerate rapidly in recent years, cementing the country’s position as a world leader in industrial automation.