North America

Jeff Bezos enjoyed the title of world's richest man for several hours, before he had to relinquish it back to Bill Gates after AMZN stock dumped after hours when the company reported Q2 net income of $197 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, down 77% from $857 million, or $1.78 in Q2 2016. This was on revenue of $37.955 billion, up 25% from the $30.4 billion a year ago, and above both the company's own expectations of $35.25-$37.75BN and consensus estimates of $37.18 billion. The company also reported operating margin of 1.7%, down from 2.8% last quarter and well below expectations.

The levitation continues with S&P futures pointing to - what else - another higher open while European stocks swung between gains and losses on the busiest earnings days of the year (85 of the Stoxx 600 report) which has seen European pharma giant AstraZeneca plunge 15%, the most on record, after its flagship lung cancer trial Mystic failed to show benefits, while Deutsche Bank slumped 4% on a 12% plunge in FICC revenue.

As is customary for the heavy-industrial equipment manufacturer, Caterpillar yesterday reported its retail sales, one day ahead of earnings, and as we discussed, the number was solid with Caterpillar reporting the longest positive streak in retail sales going back 51 months.

Several years ago, Gluskin Sheff's superstar economist (previously at Merrill), David Rosenberg (in)famously flipped from bear to bull, predicting what amounts to a victory for the Fed: a jump in (wage) inflation, a burst in economic growth, and an overall selloff in that most deflation-dependent asset, the US Treasury.

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

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