Asia

When it comes to Netflix and its stratospheric (forward) valuation, the thesis is simple: the company is (so far) the undisputed leader in the arena of internet streaming. As the LA Times summarizes, the global streaming giant today boasts impressive stats: 104 million subscribers worldwide, up 25% from last year and almost quadruple from five years ago. Its series and movies account for more than a third of all prime-time download Internet traffic in North America. Its more than 50 original shows garnered 91 Emmy Award nominations this year, second only to premium cable service HBO.

Presenting this morning's best overnight wrap, which comes courtesy of Rabobank's Michael Every, and whose title, "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?", was inspired by obvious events.

Market comments

“I see a little silhouetto of a man; Scaramucci, Scaramucci, will you do the Fandango?”

Welcome to August: you may be surprised to learn that S&P 500 futures are once again levitating, higher by 0.3%, and tracking European and Asian markets. Asian equities traded higher across the board after China's Caixin Manufacturing PMI beat expectations and printed its highest since March, refuting the decline in the official PMI data reported a day earlier, while firmer commodity prices boost both sentiment and commodity stocks across Asia and Europe.

As many traders quietly leave for summer break soaking up even more liquidity as they go, a busy US calendar unfolds in the week ahead, with ISM, PCE price data and, of course, payrolls in the spotlight.

Key Events, courtesy of RanSquawk

With high-margin FICC revenues stuck in a secular decline across the financial industry, banks are forced to extract as much profit as possible from existing product lines. Which explains why JPMorgan will soon be using a "first-of-its-kind robot" to do away with carbon-based traders altogether and execute trades across its global equities algorithms business using a "robot", after a recent trial of JPM's new artificial intelligence (AI) program showed it was "much more efficient than traditional methods of buying and selling", the FT reports.