For the 10th day in a row, China's bond yield curve remains inverted (the longest in history).
With yields at 3-year highs, corporate bond issuance is evaporating, and has now emerged as the latest major, and most imminent, threat facing China's financial sector and $10 trillion corporate debt market.
However, it appears Chinese authorities have reached their max pain point.
After three consecutive unsuccessful attempts by China to have its A Shares included in the MSCI Emerging Market index, moments ago the fourth time proved to be the charm, when MSCI finally relented and agreed to add China's A shares to the much desired index.
European stocks were flat after starting off strongly earlier, dragged lower by energy stocks. Asian stocks, U.S. futures little changed as oil tumbled with Brent tumbling as low as $45.85/bbl to the lowest intraday since November 30 and taking out a 38.2% Fib support, after a one-minute spike in volume to a day-high 5,208 lots just after 6am, with WTI mirroring Brent's momentum, and falling as much as 98c to $43.22, lowest since November 14.
Submitted by Gordon Johnson of Axiom Capital Research
Last night, China published May, 2017 new home pricing data for its 70 city index, which showed a continued slowing in growth (a key driver for commodity consumption inside China). More specifically, in May, new home prices across the China 70 city index advanced just 0.74% m/m, while annual growth, or the most important metric here, fell further to just +9.46% y/y (vs. +9.63% annual growth in April, and +10.51% annual growth December, 2016).
S&P futures rose 0.3% in subdued trading with Dow Jones futs once again in record territory as European stocks jump 0.6% following Sunday's landslide victory for Macron's party in the French parliamentary elections and as Brexit negotiations are set to officially roll out on Monday.