US equity futures are higher, boosted by a bevy of better than expected earnings out of tech giants Amazon, Intel and Microsoft as Asian stocks and European shares climb amid the dovish sentiment unleashed from Thursday’s ECB update.
Yesterday we noted the surge in cable following the stronger-than-expected Q3 GDP print of 0.4% Q/Q, above the 0.3% estimate. Afterwards, the market was calculating an 87% chance that the BoE would hike next week. Brown Brothers commented that:
The case against a hike is that inflation appears poised to peak shortly, the economy is softening, and real wages are falling. This may already be squeezing households, where an increase in the base rate is quickly passed through to households.
Multinational companies based in the United States are able to avoid paying an estimated $100 billion in federal income tax every year through the use of tax havens.
As Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, a recent report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has found that 366 of America's largest 500 companies maintain 9,755 tax haven subsidiaries holding over $2.6 trillion in accumulated profits.
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"...a quadrillion here, a quadrillion there... and pretty soon you're talking real money!"
For the first time in history, foreign assets held by Japanese institutional and individual investors appear to have topped 1,000 trillion yen ($8.79 trillion), according to Nikkei estimates.
The amount has increased roughly 50% during the past five years and now is more than twice as much as the country's gross domestic product.