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September
04
2024
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US Futures Slide, As Global Market Rout Extends For Second Day
In premarket trarding, Nvidia slid 1.9% after Bloomberg reported that the US DOJ sent subpoenas to the chipmaker, as well as other companies, as it sought evidence that the dominant provider of AI processors violated antitrust laws. Zscaler plunged 16% after the security-software company gave a full-year forecast that is weaker than expected on both adjusted earnings and revenue. Here are some other notable premarket movers:
The S&P 500 on Tuesday fell the most since Aug. 5, when recession fears triggered a brief meltdown, while the Nasdaq 100 had its biggest decline since July 24 as Nvidia crashed. The declines came after the ISM's manufacturing gauge showed that activity shrank for a fifth straight month, while commentary in the S&P PMI manufacturing report was downright apocalyptic.
The sudden souring of risk sentiment comes just as US equities were edging back toward the all-time high set in mid-July. Other key data to watch this week include July job openings on Wednesday, services PMI and jobless claims on Thursday and non-farm payrolls on Friday. These readouts may shed further light on how much and how quickly the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates, after Chair Jerome Powell last month telegraphed a September cut. “Investors are in a wait-and-see mode and trying to decipher the probabilities a US recession and how the Fed would adjust,” said Vincent Juvyns, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. “But even if we had disappointing data on US employment this week, for us, it’s too early to call a recession, notably with consumption being resilient.” The US job openings report due on Wednesday is expected to show further cooling in the labor market, following yesterday’s data showing a fifth consecutive month of contraction in manufacturing activity. As the market’s focus shifts from inflation to concerns over economic growth, negative macro data is increasingly translating into pain for stocks and other risk assets. For now, traders are anticipating the Federal Reserve will start easing policy in September and reduce rates by more than two full percentage points over the next 12 months — the steepest drop outside of a downturn since the 1980s. Payrolls data due on Friday is considered crucial in shaping the magnitude of the initial rate cut. “A disappointing number will spook markets a little bit,” said Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at Premier Miton Investors. “There’s just a lack of certainty around. I’m not brave enough to say buy the dip on Wednesday when the numbers are out on Friday.” European stocks followed their Asian counterparts lower after Wall Street’s worst day since the August meltdown. The Stoxx 600 falls 1%, led lower by technology shares. European luxury stocks fell, with LVMH and Richemont notable underperformers as Morgan Stanley cut its price targets on the two stocks amid worries over weakening demand from Chinese customers. Adding to the gloom, Swiss luxury watchmakers are turning to the government for financial aid to help them weather a downturn in demand Earlier in the session, Asian equities suffered broad-based losses following Tuesday’s tech-led US selloff. Taiwan's Taiex index plunged as much as 5.3% with TSMC tumbling amid Nvidia’s record wipeout. Japan’s Nikkei slumps more than 3.5% as the yen soared, while Korea's Kospi sheds almost 3%. Chinese indexes are relative outperformers, with the CSI 300 down less than 0.5%. Hang Seng drops about 1.1%. In FX, the yen is the strongest of the G-10 currencies, rising 0.2%. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index falls 0.1%. In rates, treasuries are richer across the curve with gains led by front-end and belly, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s spreads to unwind most of Tuesday’s flattening moves. Front-end US yields are richer by about 3bp, long-end yields by less than 2bp, leaving 2s10s, 5s30s spreads slightly steeper. 10-year around 3.81% is ~2bp richer on the day, trailing bunds in the sector by ~3bp, gilts by 1.5bp. Wider gains across core European rates follow a sharp selloff in Asia equities as risk-aversion takes hold globally. The US session includes several pieces of economic data led by JOLTS job openings, with Fed policymakers attuned to signs of weakness in labor market to guide policy. In commodities, oil rose slightly after crashing to a nine-month low as Reuters reversed its Friday story, and now "reports" that OPEC+ may not boost output after all (just as we said). Brent futures, the international benchmark, advanced above $74 a barrel following a near 5% meltdown on Tuesday. West Texas Intermediate rose 0.8%, after dropping under $70 for the first time since early January. Spot gold drops $14 to around $2,479/oz. Iron ore and copper are also in the red. Looking at today's calendar, we get the July trade balance (8:30am), July JOLTS job openings and factory orders (10am) and Fed Beige Book (2pm). No Fed speakers are scheduled; Williams and Waller are slated to speak Friday Market Snapshot
Top Overnight News
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk APAC stocks traded with losses across the board following the dire session on Wall Street, which saw a tech rout led by downside in chips, with a similar picture seen in APAC with the likes of SK Hynix opening lower by over 9%. ASX 200 saw losses led by miners and tech following a similar sectoral picture stateside, whilst the downside was somewhat cushioned by heavyweight healthcare and telecoms. The index extended on losses after the QQ GDP miss. Nikkei 225 felt a double-whammy from the tech-led downside coupled with the stronger JPY, with the index slipping under 38k and eventually 37k from a 38,728.50 close on Tuesday. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp also fell victim to the regional losses, with the former seeing its large-cap oil names with the deepest losses, whilst the mainland saw shallower losses. Caixin Services PMI deteriorated, but accompanying commentary was rosier. Top Asian News
European bourses, Stoxx 600 (-1%) began the session significantly lower, taking impetus from a weak APAC session overnight as it continued the AI-led pressure seen on Wall St. on Tuesday. Thereafter, sentiment gradually improved, but remains firmly in the red. European sectors are entirely in the red; Food Beverage and Tobacco takes the top spot, whilst Tech is the clear laggard. The likes of ASML opened lower by around 6%, playing catch-up to the NVIDIA weakness seen on Tuesday. US Equity Futures (ES -0.3%, NQ -0.5%, RTY -0.2%) are on the backfoot, continuing the NVIDIA-led weakness seen in the prior session, as risk sentiment continues to remain subdued. Top European News
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Fixed Income
Commodities
Geopolitics: Middle East
Geopolitics: Ukraine/Russia
US Event Calendar
DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap As September got going after the Labor Day holiday on Monday, the month yesterday started living up to its billing as the worst month of the year for risk with a notable sell-off. The S&P 500 (-2.12%) posted its worst daily performance since the global turmoil on August 5th and included the largest market cap drop in history for a single stock. Nvidia (-9.53%) lost $279bn on the day. The main catalyst for the sell-off was initially the latest ISM manufacturing print, which renewed investors’ concerns that the US economy is running out of a bit of momentum. The release came in beneath expectations yet again, at 47.2 in August (vs. 47.5 expected), which was only a modest pickup from the disappointing July reading. On top of that, the new orders subcomponent fell to its lowest since May 2023, at 44.6. So there really wasn’t much good news to focus on at all, and it’s added to the downbeat backdrop ahead of Friday’s all-important US jobs report. On that the employment subcomponent did pick up from a 4-year low of 43.4 last month to 46.0 but this is still low, and the 17th month below 50 in the last 20 months. However, this has been a period when overall payrolls have been strong so the manufacturing read-through to the rest of the economy is certainly not automatic. All things considered it was viewed as a soft report and in response risk assets saw a sharp selloff that only extended as the session progressed. The losses were driven by the more cyclical sectors, with the NASDAQ (-3.26%) and the Mag-7 (-3.36%) posting even larger declines than the S&P 500. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (-7.75%) saw its worst daily slump since March 2020 amidst a sharp fall from Nvidia (-9.53%), which saw its worst decline since April. Even more remarkably, this marked the largest global daily decline in a company’s market capitalisation, with $279bn wiped off Nvidia’s valuation. Nvidia came under further pressure after-hours after Bloomberg reported that it had received a subpoena from the US Justice Department which is investigating its position as the dominant AI computing provider. S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures have extended their losses overnight, down -0.49% and -0.67% respectively. While tech stocks led yesterday’s losses, the reversal was pretty broad-based, and the small-cap Russell 2000 also fell -3.09%. The equal-weighted S&P 500 was down -1.33%, with defensive sectors limiting its decline. The renewed volatility also saw the VIX volatility index jump +5.17pts to 20.72, which is its second largest jump in two years, behind August 5th this year, and its highest close this year apart from the 7 days in early August. Other risk assets also came under pressure, with US IG (+4bps) and HY (+16bps) spreads seeing the largest widening since the August 5th vol shock. With that ISM release in hand, investors also ratcheted up the chance that the Fed would start with a 50bp rate cut in a couple of weeks’ time. Indeed, futures raised the probability from 31% on Monday to 34% by the close yesterday. That more dovish pricing was evident at a longer horizon as well, and futures are now pricing in 102bps of cuts by the December meeting, up from 97bps the previous day. And 205bps of rate cuts are now priced in over the next 12 months, an amount of easing that since the 1980s has materialised only amid recessions. As investors priced in more rate cuts, that led to a fresh rally among US Treasuries that took the 2yr yield (-5.3bps) to just 3.86%. That’s the lowest closing level for the 2yr yield since the regional banking turmoil in early 2023, and the 10yr yield (-7.2bps) also saw a sharp decline to 3.83% with a small additional -0.38bps dip overnight. This is bucking the seasonal trend as September has seen the Global Bond Ag decline for the last seven years with 10yr UST yields up in 7 of the last 8 Septembers. Still nearly 4 weeks of the month left though. Clearly, a lot of September will be dictated by how the jobs report turns out on Friday (DB expect +150k for payrolls). But today, the US labour market will remain in focus with the JOLTS job openings release for July. That’s one that Fed Chair Powell has often cited, and recent months have provided evidence that the labour market is cooling off. Among others, the quits rate of those voluntarily leaving their job came in at 2.1% in June, the joint-lowest since 2020. And the ratio of unemployed individuals per vacancy was down to a three-year low of 1.20. So if today’s report adds to the signs that the labour market is weakening, that could further raise expectations that the Fed will open with a 50bp cut (not our base case though). One factor that pushed yields lower was a fresh decline in oil prices yesterday, which helped to ease fears about any lingering inflationary pressures. For instance, WTI crude oil prices were down -4.36% on the day to $70.34/bbl, which is their lowest closing level of 2024 so far, and also marks their worst daily performance since last November. In part, that’s been driven by demand factors, including fears about a weakening US economy. But supply factors were also at play, and there was a noticeable decline in prices yesterday after Bloomberg reported that a deal could emerge to restore Libyan production again, based on comments from Sadiq Al-Kabir, the central bank governor who’d fled Libya. With the risk-off mood continuing in Asian hours, oil prices are down another several tenths overnight with WTI falling below $70/bbl. Over in Europe, markets followed a similar if milder pattern as the US, trading in line with the broader risk-off tone at the time of the close. That meant the STOXX 600 (-0.97%) lost ground for a second day running, with the index also posting its worst daily performance since August 5. Interestingly though, we did get comments from Lithuania’s central bank governor Simkus, who referred to an October rate cut after September as “quite unlikely”. So that offered some pushback against those expecting rate cuts might happen more than once per quarter. Market pricing was reflective of that, with the chance of an October rate cut down to 34% yesterday. Even so, sovereign bonds still rallied in line with the global trend, and yields on 10yr bunds (-5.9bps), OATs (-3.6bps) and BTPs (-3.3bps) all fell back. The risk sell-off is continuing in the Asian session with Japan’s Nikkei (-3.31%) leading losses in the region after slightly recovering from an initial -4.04% drop while the KOSPI (-2.67%) is also trading noticeably lower. Elsewhere, the Hang Seng (-1.06%) is also edging lower after sliding to its lowest in three weeks with the CSI (-0.31%) and the Shanghai Composite (-0.48%) also trading in the red, but marching to their own beat as they have done for most of this year. Early morning data showed that China’s Caixin services PMI for August expanded at a slower rate compared to July, with the index falling to 51.6 (v/s 51.8 expected) from 52.1. Australia’s second quarter GDP growth slowed to +1.0% y/y (v/s +0.9% expected), the weakest annual pace since the 1990’s recession, outside of the Covid-19 pandemic period. It followed an upwardly revised gain of +1.3% in the previous quarter. To the day ahead now, and US data releases include the JOLTS job openings, factory orders and the trade balance for July. Meanwhile in Europe, we’ll get the final services and composite PMIs for August, and the Euro Area PPI reading for July. From central banks, the Bank of Canada will announce their latest policy decision, the Fed will release their Beige Book, and we’ll hear from the ECB’s Villeroy.
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