For those of our readers who are gluttons for punishment, here is a live stream of the House debate which will carry on (and on and on...) for the next several hours. Updates will be posted below throughout the day.
http://livestream.com/accounts/300260/events/4962941/player
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Asian shares and S&P futures rose on optimism that today's rescheduled U.S. vote on health care will pass following Trump's Ultimatum to the Freedom Caucus. European stocks gave up some of Thursday’s gains, falling for the fourth time in five days, and moving further away from a 15-month high reached a week ago while the yen weakened for the first time in nine days before the long awaited U.S. health-care vote that has dominated market sentiment this week. Oil was headed for a third weekly drop this month. Economic data include durable goods orders, Markit U.S. manufacturing PMI.
With the time for today's critical vote rapidly approaching, traders, pundits and the general population were eagerly looking forward to Paul Ryan's rescheduled 3:30pm press conference (it was originally supposed to take place before noon). It now appears that they will have to wait some more, because moments ago the press conference was postponed for a second time, and this time it was delayed until further notice...
European and Asian stocks were modestly in the green, with U.S. futures higher, before a critical procedural vote on a Republican health-care bill to repeal Obamacare, while Janet Yellen is set to speak in Washington at 8:45am.
Authored by Nicholas Colas via ConvergEx,
The stock market may not be a casino, but 21 is the game of the day. That’s how many House votes the Republicans can afford to lose from their own party and still pass the American Health Care Act on Thursday. The cause of today’s sell-off is simple: there seems to be more like 25 “Nay” votes coming from the right wing of the GOP. For what it’s worth, our two best sources in DC both think the bill will pass on Thursday and today’s Beltway theatrics were just par for the course.