Monday, March 26, 2018

Stock and Commodities Related News.

US STOCKS-Wall St nosedives as investors flee on trade war fears - Reuters News

24-Mar-2018 04:58:42 AM

Major indexes clock worst week in more than two years

China-U.S. trade war worries eat into risk appetite 

Financial sector falls with Treasury yields

Micron sinks on pricing worries, weighs on chip stocks

Indexes down: Dow 1.77 pct, S&P 2.1 pct, Nasdaq 2.4 pct 

Updates to close, adds commentary

By Sinéad Carew

NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - Wall Street tumbled on Friday with more than 1,000 points knocked off the Dow in two days as investors, increasingly nervous about a potential U.S. trade war with China, shied away from risk ahead of the weekend and sought shelter from further losses.

In a volatile session, the S&P 500 came within a hair of its 200-day moving average, a key technical level. The benchmark index also nudged closer to its February low, which marked a correction, ending 9.9 percent lower than its Jan. 26 record.

"There is concern what the trade war could look like. Investors want to manage their risk. If it escalates rapidly, it could be a major headwind for the market," said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York. 

President Donald Trump's plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world's two largest economies closer to a trade war as China declared plans to levy duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports including fruit and wine even as it urged the United States to "pull back from the brink." 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 424.69 points, or 1.77 percent, to 23,533.2, the S&P 500 lost 55.43 points, or 2.10 percent, to 2,588.26 after hitting an intraday low that was barely above its 200-day moving average of 2585.22.

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 174.01 points, or 2.43 percent, to 6,992.67.

For the week, the Dow was down 5.67 percent, the S&P 500 was down 5.95 percent and the Nasdaq was down 6.54 percent, marking their biggest weekly percentage falls since January 2016.

The Dow was down 11.6 percent since its Jan. 26 high, and hit its lowest close since confirming a correction in February.

The Cboe Volatility Index, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility in the S&P 500, finished up 1.53 points at 24.87, its highest close since Feb. 13.

The S&P's financial sector was the S&P's biggest percentage loser, at 3 percent, after a volatile session in which it was whip-sawed by volatile Treasury yields. 

Bloomberg News cited China's ambassador to the United States saying that the country is "looking at all options" in response to tariffs, which could include scaling back purchases of U.S. Treasuries.

Nasdaq was weighed down by declines in momentum stocks such as Facebook, Amazon.com, Microsoft and Google's parent Alphabet.

The semiconductor sector took a fall after Micron Technology's quarterly report stoked fears about falling NAND prices. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index slumped 3.3 percent.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 3.96-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.72-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted two new 52-week highs and 42 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 23 new highs and 93 new lows. 

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.11 billion shares, above the 7.3 billion average for the last 20 trading days.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed and April Joyner in New York and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish)




UPDATE 2-Oil prices fall as U.S. trade dispute with China looms - Reuters News

26-Mar-2018 01:50:50 PM

Stock markets stumble on potential U.S.-China trade dispute

U.S. rig count hits 3-year high, pointing to rising output

China launches Shanghai crude oil futures

Glencore carries out 1st trade on Shanghai crude oil futures

Adds China comment, updates prices

By Henning Gloystein

SINGAPORE, March 26 (Reuters) - Brent and WTI crude oil futures dipped on Monday as concerns of a looming trade dispute between the United States and China weighed on global markets.

In Asia, Shanghai crude oil futures debuted strongly, both in terms of volume and prices, with front-month contracts soaring as much as 6 percent as investors bought into the world's newest financial oil trading instrument.

Looming over oil markets, however, was the possibility of a full-blown trade war between the United States and China battered Asian shares, on Monday. The falls came after U.S. President Donald Trump last week signed a memorandum that could impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of imports from China.

This weighed on crude oil futures as well. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $65.49 a barrel at 0543 GMT, down 39 cents, or 0.6 percent, from their previous close.

Brent crude futures were at $70.18 per barrel, down 27 cents, or 0.4 percent.

Crude was also weighed by a rise in the number of U.S. rigs drilling for oil to a three-year high of 804, implying further rises in production, which has already jumped by a quarter since mid-2016 to 10.4 million barrels per day (bpd).

NEW FUTURES

Financial oil markets have long been dominated by Europe's Brent and America's WTI.

Asia, despite being the world's biggest and fastest growing oil consumer, has so far not had a benchmark.

That possibly changed on Monday, as China saw the launch of Shanghai crude oil futures. 

Few analysts doubt that Asia is overdue a financial oil price benchmark, and that China with its vast consumer and production base is a prime location for it.

"China surpassed the U.S. to become the world's largest importer of crude in 2017. Rightly so, China would want to play a more active role in influencing the price of crude oil," said Sushant Gupta, research director at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Wood Mackenzie said it expected China's crude imports to grow by 2.1 million bpd from 2017 to 2023, which it said was the world's biggest growth in demand.

"Prices assessed at the Shanghai exchange will reflect China's crude supply and demand," said Gupta, adding that its independence from movements in Brent and WTI "could provide new arbitrage opportunities for traders".

Despite this, there were concerns over regulatory interference, as seen in other Chinese commodities like iron ore and coal. 

"The fact that the government is encouraging the exchange and also is not shy about stepping in to occasionally change the rules may discourage international players," said Jeff Brown, President of energy consultancy FGE.

That concern did not scare off global commodity trading giant Glencore, which according to Chinese brokerage Xinhu Futures carried out the first trade on the Shanghai crude oil futures.

(Reporting by Henning Gloystein

Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)




PRECIOUS-Gold rises to five-week high on trade war, geopolitical woes - Reuters News

26-Mar-2018 12:48:12 PM

Gold to be headline driven for the moment -analysts

Gold specs cut net long position by 23,822 contracts to

121,838

-CFTC

(Adds quotes, updates prices)

By Eileen Soreng

March 26 (Reuters) - Gold prices rose to a five-week high on Monday as the threat of a trade war between the United States and China weighed on the dollar and equity markets, driving investors to seek refuge in safe-haven assets.

Spot gold rose 0.1 percent to $1,348.66 per ounce at 0419 GMT. Price rose to as much as $1,350.76 per ounce, the highest since Feb. 19.

Gold rose 2.6 percent last week, its biggest weekly gain since September 2017.

U.S. gold futures for April delivery fell 0.1 percent to $1,348.80 per ounce.

Fears of a trade war between the U.S. and China battered Asian shares again on Monday, keeping the safe-haven yen near a 16-month peak. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was down 0.1 percent at 89.39. 

Last week U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum that could impose tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods, while China declared plans to levy additional duties on up to $3 billion of U.S. imports in response to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium.

"It's hard not to stay long gold with geopolitical risk now registering in the danger zone as an escalation of a trade war and John Bolton's appointment unambiguously raised short-term market risks to a whole new level," Stephen Innes, APAC trading head at OANDA, said in a note.

Trump named Bolton, who has previously advocated using military force against North Korea and Iran, as his national security adviser last week provoking strong reactions worldwide. A senior Iranian official, on Sunday, called the move "shameful."

The yellow metal also received support early Monday from fresh tensions between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthi militia, said a Hong Kong-based trader.

Saudi air defences shot down seven ballistic missiles fired by Houthi militia on Sunday, with debris killing a man in what was the first death in the capital during the Saudi-led coalition's three-year military campaign in Yemen.

"Gold is going to be headline driven for the moment... so we are going to keep an eye out for any new information," the trader added.

Gold is sought as a store of value during times of political and financial uncertainty, while a weaker dollar makes dollar-denominated bullion cheaper for holders of other currencies.

Meanwhile, speculators cut their net long positions in the week to March 20 by 23,822 contracts to 121,838 contracts, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed on Friday. The data does not reflect the buying interest that occurred during the latter part of last week.

In other precious metals, silver gained 0.5 percent to $16.60 per ounce; while platinum was up 0.2 percent at $948.99 per ounce.

Palladium rose 0.1 percent to $977.10 per ounce.

(Reporting by Eileen Soreng in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Pullin and Christian Schmollinger) 




VEGOILS-Palm falls to one-week low on weak demand outlook, stronger ringgit - Reuters News

26-Mar-2018 12:53:20 PM

Palm falls to one-week low of 2,416 rgt/T

Market also down on rising output forecasts - Trader

Malaysian exports up 9.5 pct on-month during March 1-25 -AmSpec

By Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures declined in early trade on Monday, hitting a one-week low in early session, weighed down by a weakening demand outlook and a stronger ringgit.

Gains in the ringgit, palm's currency of trade, usually make the oil more expensive for holders of foreign currencies. The ringgit strengthened 0.3 percent against the dollar around noon on Monday to 3.9030.

The benchmark palm oil contract for June delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.45 percent to 2,417 ringgit ($619.27) a tonne at the midday break. It earlier fell to 2,416 ringgit, its lowest since March 20.

Trading volumes stood at 8,381 lots of 25 tonnes each.

"The ringgit is stronger today and, going forward, the market feels that April exports will decline as duties are imposed," said a futures trader from Kuala Lumpur, referring to Malaysia's resumption of crude palm oil export taxes in April.

Malaysia in early January suspended its export tax on crude palm oil for three months to increase demand and boost prices, as it expected stockpiles to grow in 2018.

While Malaysian palm oil demand is expected to rise in the short term before the export tax kicks in, the market expects exports to slump from April onwards as buyers switch to more competitively priced Indonesian palm. 

Inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia reported on Monday that Malaysian palm oil shipments rose 9.5 percent between March 1-25 versus the same period last month.

The trader also added that expectations of rising production for the full month of March is also weighing on sentiment. Palm oil output typically sees seasonal gains around the second quarter of the year before peaking in the third quarter. 

In other related oils, the Chicago Board of Trade's May soybean oil contract rose 0.5 percent, while the May soybean oil on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 0.1 percent. 

The Dalian May palm oil contract declined 0.2 percent.

Palm oil prices are impacted by movements in rival edible oils as they compete in the global vegetable oils market. 


Palm, soy and crude oil prices as of 0444 GMT

Contract Month Last Change Low High Volume

MY PALM OIL APR8 2410 -10.00 2390 2415 48

MY PALM OIL MAY8 2422 -10.00 2419 2436 1270

MY PALM OIL JUN8 2417 -11.00 2416 2433 4534

CHINA PALM OLEIN SEP8 5102 -16.00 4980 5116 400914

CHINA SOYOIL SEP8 5844 +2.00 5690 5874 544532

CBOT SOY OIL MAY8 31.57 +0.15 31.42 31.71 7606

INDIA PALM OIL MAR8 643.50 -1.00 643.50 644.5 10

INDIA SOYOIL APR8 780 -0.15 779.5 780.45 120

NYMEX CRUDE MAY8 65.57 -0.31 65.46 66.55 89311

Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne

CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound

Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne

India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg

Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel


($1 = 3.9030 ringgit)

($1 = 64.8800 Indian rupees)

($1 = 6.3117 Chinese yuan) 


(Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Sunil Nair)




GRAINS-Wheat climbs to 1-week high on U.S. dryness; soybeans rebound - Reuters News

26-Mar-2018 11:02:26 AM

Wheat rises for 5th session as dry weather hurts U.S. crop

Soybeans up, but threat of U.S.-China trade war caps gains

By Naveen Thukral

SINGAPORE, March 26 (Reuters) - Chicago wheat rose for a fifth consecutive session on Monday, climbing to a one-week high as concerns over dry weather in the U.S. southern Plains underpinned the market.

Soybeans bounced back after closing marginally lower on Friday, although gains were capped by the threat of a U.S.-China trade war hurting demand for U.S. cargoes. 

The Chicago Board of Trade most-active wheat contract rose 0.5 percent to $4.62-3/4 a bushel by 0245 GMT, after hitting its highest since March 19 at $4.63-3/4 a bushel.

Soybeans gained 0.7 percent to $10.35-1/4 a bushel and corn advanced 0.7 percent to $3.80 a bushel.

The wheat market is finding support in dry weather in key U.S. winter crop regions.

"U.S. hard red winter (HRW) wheat crops remain at risk of falling yields," said Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. "The HRW crop regions did get a little rain last week but not enough where it was most needed."

Soybeans closed marginally lower on Friday on worries about trade issues with China, the world's top soybean importer, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods.

However, soybeans were not on China's list of American goods that could be subject to extra duties in response to U.S. tariffs. 

China is projected to import 97 million tonnes of soybeans in the 2017/18 marketing year and 100 million in 2018/19, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Those totals cannot be met by South American suppliers alone, analysts say, making it less likely that China would retaliate against U.S. soybeans. 

Soybean prices have drawn support from crop losses in drought-hit Argentina, the world's top soymeal exporter. The Buenos Aires grains exchange last week cut its estimate of the country's soy harvest to 39.5 million tonnes from 42 million tonnes previously.

The focus is shifting to U.S. growing season. Farmers are likely to plant a record 91.5 million acres of soybeans in 2018 and 90 million acres of corn, according to a Farm Futures survey of nearly 1,400 growers released on Friday.

Large speculators cut their net long position in CBOT corn futures in the week to March 20, regulatory data released on Friday showed. 

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.


Grains prices at 0245 GMT

Contract Last Change Pct chg Two-day chg MA 30 RSI

CBOT wheat 462.75 2.50 +0.54% +1.54% 477.67 42

CBOT corn 380.00 2.75 +0.73% +1.06% 380.69 55

CBOT soy 1035.25 7.00 +0.68% +0.53% 1043.45 51

CBOT rice 12.34 -$0.02 -0.16% +0.12% $12.34 55

WTI crude 65.53 -$0.35 -0.53% +1.91% $62.14 69

Currencies

Euro/dlr $1.237 $0.002 +0.14% +0.55%

USD/AUD 0.7722 0.003 +0.34% +0.40%

Most active contracts

Wheat, corn and soy US cents/bushel. Rice: USD per hundredweight

RSI 14, exponential


(Reporting by Naveen Thukral

Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)




TREASURIES-Yields rise from six-week lows as stocks retrace losses - Reuters News

23-Mar-2018 09:07:49 PM

Yields rise as stocks recover

Capital goods orders rebounded in February

By Karen Brettell

NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields rose from to six-week lows on Friday as stocks appeared stronger, after tumbling on Thursday on concerns about global trade wars.

China urged the United States on Friday to "pull back from the brink" as President Donald Trump's plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world's two largest economies closer to a trade war.

Stocks markets fell globally as investors feared the impact of tariffs on global growth, before retracing some of their losses on Friday morning.

"Equity markets seem to be coming off their lows quite nicely," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. "We're getting a little bit of a rubber band rebound from yesterday's risk off rally in Treasuries."

Benchmark 10-year notes were last down 5/32 in price on the day to yield 2.850 percent, after falling to a six-week low of 2.792 percent overnight.

With no large catalysts in the near-term expected to set market direction investors are focusing on headlines coming out of Washington.

Data on Friday showed that new orders for key U.S.-made capital goods rebounded more than expected in February after two straight monthly declines and shipments surged, pointing to strong growth in business spending on equipment in the first quarter. 

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

-------MARKET SNAPSHOT AT 8:48 a.m. EDT (1248 GMT)-------

June T-Bond           144-08/32  (-16/32)          

June 10-Year note     120-14/32  (-03/32)          

                             Change vs    Current

                                Nyk        yield

Three-month bills  1.6975      (+0.01)     1.728

Six-month bills    1.8875     (unch)       1.932

Two-year note     99-30/32        (-)      2.291

Five-year note 99-30/32    (-02/32)     2.642

10-year note  99-05/32    (-05/32)     2.850

30-year bond  98-04/32    (-19/32)     3.097

                                    

DOLLAR SWAP SPREADS

                                                                  LAST      Change

U.S. 2-year dollar swap spread            32.25     (+1.00)

U.S. 3-year dollar swap spread            27.25     (+0.50)

U.S. 5-year dollar swap spread            15.00      (unch)

U.S. 10-year dollar swap spread            3.75     (-0.25)

U.S. 30-year dollar swap spread          -15.25     (-0.75)


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