While the opioid epidemic ravages rural America, Wall Street is not immune to its scourge.
In fact, given its unique pressures, the securities industry leaves its professionals particularly vulnerable to drug problems.Those are the warnings of an addiction specialist who has treated securities professionals with drug problems. The industry, she added, doesn’t understand that its professionals could be hurt by the opioid epidemic sweeping the country.
Dr. Nancy Irwin, a psychologist and addiction specialist with Seasons Recovery Centers in Los Angeles, said the average financial professional facing production pressures can easily get hooked.
“Opiates are a great way to numb out from the psychological pressures of the business, [and] forget if you have physical pain,” she said. Professionals, she added, may begin taking these drugs to treat a physical problem but continue using them after a wound or cut has healed because these drugs now help them get through trying times at the firm.
It can start by simply injuring your knee while skiing on holiday.
Trey Laird, a 22-year trader on Wall Street, spoke on CNBC recently about how quickly the opioid addiction overtook him.
After surgery, Laird’s primary care doctor gave him a prescription, plus a refill, for pain management. Laird related that he developed an addiction in roughly two weeks.
“It happened super quick,” he confessed. “There’s no coming back from it.”
When asked about how prevalent the addiction was on the Street, Laird said, “I’m not the only guy. Statistics would tell us in every industry there are functioning addicts.”
His addiction was such a life-altering event that Laird founded the Lighthouse, a sober living community in Connecticut, to help professional men coming out of detox begin reassembling their lives.
The opioid problem “is an epidemic across the nation,” Irwin complained — and yet no one is investigating its effect on the securities industry, she said.
“To my knowledge, there are no published studies on the Wall Street opiate epidemic,” she said.
She also contended that the securities industry is doing little to help professionals who are hooked on painkillers or illegal drugs and need help.
Spokespersons for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority had no information on studies of drug abuse in the industry or programs to help those affected.
Why aren’t more professionals seeking help?
Irwin listed three factors: “The fear of losing their jobs, the fear of stigma and shame and the lack of information on how to handle treatment while abiding by their professional boards.”
Irwin also said the securities industry should be concerned even if there are no numbers to prove this is a widespread problem, because the average addict usually affects five people.
“Workers on a busy crowded trading floor might affect many more others having to cover for them, do damage control, correct errors, take up the slack and apologize for outbursts,” Irwin said.
Irwin said confidentially that besides treating numerous securities pros with drug problems, she has “certainly had lots of CEOs, attorneys, entrepreneurs across the board.”
Irwin accused the securities industry and other industries of “turning a blind eye to the problem because money is the bottom line.”
The Limits of Amazon
The tech giant is very good at delivering what customers need, but is it as well positioned to sell them things they want?
Amazon.com Inc. is a colossus. In the near future, it could even surpass Apple Inc. as the world’s largest publicly traded company.
But whether you think it will get there depends on how big you think the market is for the products and services Amazon is best at. One secret to Amazon’s amazing scalability is this: Not everything is an Amazon business.
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the U.S. by a huge margin. In cloud-computing services, it is the world leader by nearly every measure. With the Echo speaker, it was the surprise early leader in voice-based computing, and that business has exploded as well.
Meanwhile, Amazon is leasing planes and buying semi trailers to compete with FedEx and UPS for delivery of its own goods. This year it is on track to spend as much on video content as Netflix did in 2017.
And though no one knows what Amazon will do with Whole Foods, its push into physical retail has rival Wal-Mart scrambling to match Amazon in other ways, such as e-commerce.
All of these moves fit into Amazon’s core mission as a data-driven instant-gratification company. Its fanaticism for customer experience is enabled by every technology the company can get its hands on, from data centers to drones. Imagine the data-collecting power of Facebook wedded to the supply-chain empire of Wal-Mart—that’s Amazon.
There is one major problem with the idea that Amazon will eat the entire universe, however. Amazon is good at identifying commodity products and making those as cheap and available as possible. “Your margin is my opportunity” is one of Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’s best-known bon mots. But this system isn’t very compatible with big-ticket, higher-margin items.
Could Amazon’s Lab126—famous for both the successful Echo and the failed Fire phone—ever produce something as premium as an iPhone or an OLED TV? Its success in electronics has come from driving their prices to the very bottom.
The same goes for Amazon’s other businesses. For example, could Amazon Studios, which has shown little ability to create hits, ever produce a franchise like Marvel’s Avengers or HBO’s Game of Thrones?
How Amazon Does It
Amazon now increasingly makes its money by extracting a percentage from the sales of other sellers on its site. It has become a platform company like Facebook Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which serve as marketplaces for businesses with less reach of their own.
There are likely a million active sellers on Amazon’s marketplace, says Euromonitor International, a consumer-spending research firm. (Amazon says it has two million sellers total, but many may not be active.) In 2017, 66% of the money Amazon shoppers spent world-wide was for goods sold by companies other than Amazon, Euromonitor estimates. Amazon typically takes a 15% margin from other sellers, and can generate extra revenue by warehousing and delivering their goods, as well.
Eventually, Amazon could become the ultimate platform for retail, the “retail cloud” upon which countless other online retail businesses are built, said Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder and chief executive of Marketplace Pulse, a business-intelligence firm focused on e-commerce. “Maybe eventually you can even outsource your manufacturing to Amazon,” he added.
Amazon famously adheres to the rule that any new business should be built by a team small enough to be fed with two pizzas. These teams are “a way to scale thousands of product categories,” said Benedict Evans, partner at venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, because they are nimble and can have independent profit-and-loss statements.
Think of Amazon as an umbrella company composed of disconnected and sometimes competing businesses, though critically they can access common infrastructure, including the retail platform and cloud services.
Ultimately, these smaller businesses must feed the core mission. Amazon’s video business isn’t just its own potential profit center; it’s also a way to keep people in Amazon’s world longer, where they spend more money, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said in October. Amazon Prime Video also makes customers more likely to renew their Prime subscriptions, he said.
Whole Foods may one day prove to be a launchpad for swarms of same-hour delivery drones, though for now it’s a brick-and-mortar incentive to customers. Notice how prominently Amazon took credit for the grocery store’s recent price cuts, said Victor Rosenman, chief executive of Feedvisor, a company that helps sellers on Amazon’s marketplace price their goods.
“I grew up in Russia, and it reminds me of an old joke: When the summer is warm, they’d say it was because of the Communist Party,” Mr. Rosenman said. “They’re wanting to build awareness that thanks to Amazon, things are getting better—and cheaper.”
What Amazon Can’t Do
Amazon may be mastering commodity goods; its own Basics line went from about 250 products in 2013 to over 1,500 today. But making items widely available at low prices runs directly counter to the way higher-profit businesses work.
Consider the makers of high-end handbags, which limit who can distribute their wares and, as a result, who can buy them. Not surprisingly, many of those brands refuse to sell on Amazon at all.
Yet fashion is one of Amazon’s fastest-growing retail categories, an Amazon spokeswoman says. The company recently launched Prime Wardrobe, which competes with other online retailers that ship assortments of clothes to customers and allow them to try on and return items they don’t want. The company also carries some luxury brands like Hugo Boss, Milly, AG Jeans and Stuart Weitzman.
Cloud computing might not seem to have anything in common with handbags, but Amazon Web Services has limitations similar to those of Amazon’s retail business.
Why hasn’t the massive success of Amazon Web Services hurt the revenue or valuation of its chief competitors? Yes, it’s partly because the pie has expanded so fast, every competitor is growing. But it’s also because Amazon offers a commodity—basic cloud services. Google, Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. offer more specialized services, and Oracle Corp., for one, charges a premium on white-glove treatment for business-essential assets.
Ultimately, the strategies that allow Amazon to continue growing will also be its limitation. “If the platform needs to be one-size-fits-all across many, many different product categories, it becomes difficult to create specific experiences for different kinds of products,” Mr. Evans said.
The bulk of our everyday goods and services may one day come from Amazon, and everyone from CVS to Uber should watch their backs. Even so, there will continue to be countless competitors that would never dream of branding any of their products “Basic.”
How Amazon’s Deep Pockets Play Into Fashion
The company has a history of experimenting until it succeeds, and now it has a lot more runway to get there.
From groceries and gadgets to fashion, Amazon is all over the place.
The e-commerce juggernaut marked its “biggest shopping day ever” at the start of the holidays on Cyber Monday, which briefly catapulted chief executive officer Jeff Bezos’ net worth over the $100 billion mark.
How much of that was born of Amazon Fashion and its holiday efforts isn’t clear. What was obvious, however, was that the apparel group did its best to drum up sales, launching numerous promotions ahead of the shopping season. Days in advance, it slashed prices by 30 to 65 percent on a range of goods, from its own lines to others including Adidas Stan Smiths, Eberjey pajamas and footwear from Frye and Uggs.
Those efforts, however, couldn’t hold a candle to Amazon’s electronics category. The company revealed that four of its gadgets — the Echo Dot smart speaker, the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, the new Echo and the Fire 7 tablet — were the “top-selling products across all categories” on its site. The low-end Echo Dot topped the site’s bestseller list worldwide.
Perhaps it’s not fair to compare Amazon Fashion and its devices, however. The tech company has been making gadgets since 2007, with the first Kindle e-reader, while the nascent apparel business is still taking shape.
Not that this year didn’t bring some noteworthy moves. The web giant courted big brands such as Nike, which has been piloting an online store on the site, and pursued retail deals with actress Drew Barrymore and basketball star Dwyane Wade. It fine-tuned its try-before-you-buy Prime Wardrobe service, pushed to expand its own private labels, and served up recommendations with its Echo Look camera and styling assistant. In the background, the company — which owns a patent on a shape-shifting mannequin — is integrating recent acquisition Body Labs and its virtual fitting technology.
If that seems like something of a hodgepodge, then welcome to Amazon’s strategy. The company has always operated upside down from the status quo, and it’s doing it again in fashion. To see where it’s all going, look to Amazon’s approach to technology, where its secret weapon — that massive marketplace — and its unusual methodology are hidden in plain sight.
Tech makers often start with devices, using them to drive attention to their platforms. But Amazon started with the platform, its retail marketplace, and took its time to build it out. It knew it wouldn’t turn a profit for the first several years, but it was playing a long game. Eventually, it fished around for the right devices, digital content and new categories to feed back into its ecosystem.
The ensuing parade of e-readers, phones, tablets, TV devices and other gizmos garnered mixed results until the first Echo speaker arrived in 2015. The sleeper hit intrigued the market with its voice powers and exclusive, invitation-only debut.
Now Amazon owns at least three-quarters of the burgeoning smart speaker sector. That’s no small matter. Analysts see voice and other input technologies changing the way people interact with their computing devices on a broad scale. For most interactions, people use keyboards to engage technology. But those days are numbered, noted IDC’s Karsten Weide, program vice president of media and entertainment. “There’s only one reason consumers use a keyboard at all — they must,” he explained. “And once they don’t have to anymore, they won’t.”
Today brands are racing to come up with a voice strategy and develop Alexa skills. Meanwhile, competitors like Google find themselves in the strange position of catching up to a tech rival it all but laughed at a few years ago.
The Echo line is a self-reinforcing phenomenon for Amazon, expanding access to its marketplace in new ways, bringing the company to the forefront of a new technology, opening up a new commercial vista in the smart home and giving customers a little something more.
This “pray and spray” approach requires very deep pockets and a willingness to test relentlessly while failing often. That can create tough work environments, as Amazon’s European divisions discovered this holiday season, with strikes in Germany and Italy, and accusations of poor working conditions in England.
Whatever the speed bumps, Amazon has the resources to keep pressing forward. Beyond e-commerce, its coffers swell with revenue from Amazon Web Services, or AWS. Last quarter, the cloud business broke the $4 billion mark, and it’s been on a tear since, expanding in multiple directions. The Amazon subsidiary announced major improvements to cloud infrastructure, security and new tools for video, Internet of Things technologies, machine learning and virtual and augmented reality and 3-D apps. It built a video camera to give developers hands-on machine-learning experience, and introduced features that allow them to add AWS-powered speech translation, recognition and translation to apps.
Tech makers, media companies and retailers are lining up, including the NFL, Intuit, Thomson Reuters, DigitalGlobe, Hotels.com, ZipRecruiter, Washington Post, Symantec, Motorola Solutions, Expedia, The Walt Disney Co., Turner and others.
Amazon has always had the willingness to experiment, and it has the ability to fuel a seemingly limitless array of attempts until it reaches the right formula. Then it aggressively blankets the market.
That’s the company’s m.o., and it has the online retailer sticking its hands into a variety of businesses. Recent speculation puts drugstores in the crosshairs — perhaps as a natural extension of its supermarket interests. In groceries, that mind-set has spawned numerous services aimed at joining Prime membership with Whole Foods shopping, new pricing models, on-site lockers and other tests to see what resonates with shoppers.
Similarly, it’s the breadth of Amazon’s ventures into fashion that show the company is in the apparel business for the long haul.
For now, however, retailers and brands may take comfort in one important detail: Fashion is a fundamentally different business than commodity products, like consumer electronics and food.
“Bringing in both big and trendy brands has sure put Amazon’s apparel business on the map,” said CrowdTap ceo Matt Britton, an author, Millennial marketing expert and consultant for Fortune 500 companies. “That said, there’s still work to be done before they take the cake from online retailers.” As holiday sales got under way, he noted that the e-commerce company’s major strength lies in nonapparel products.
“While Amazon is becoming as active in apparel as they have been in electronics, this strategy shows that fashion is a bit more niche and personal,” he said, though noting that the company is gearing up. “In leveraging a diverse array of brands and expert influencers that speak to many different aesthetics, Amazon is prepping fashion for tomorrow’s individualized, innovation-seeking consumers.”
As it prepares for the future, its present success in apparel is rooted in basics, said research firm L2.
According to L2’s “Amazon Intelligence: Fashion 2017” report, which analyzed the company’s fashion business between January and August, the site had a strong showing with T-shirts and underwear. L2 said Amazon’s private-label business “found success in men’s polo shirts and shorts and poses an especially big threat to basics brands like Hanes and Dockers,” but that overall, “sluggish growth of some of its private-label brands” prompted the retailer to use its Prime Day event this year to compensate for it.
In a later report, the firm wrote that “Prime Day drove enough awareness for Amazon’s private-label fashion brands that Amazon Essentials has been able to maintain momentum and surpass legacy brand Dockers in performance rank.” The latter refers to L2’s scoring tool for brand performance on the retail platform.
“Amazon is a home of repetitive, commoditized things,” said Loren Padelford, vice president at Shopify and general manager of the Shopify Plus enterprise platform. “Commodities are thriving on Amazon, while brands are better off engaging with their consumers in a more direct, experiential way.”
That’s the narrative now, but clearly Amazon with its array of tests has its sights on more — or at least it’s not done trying to pick up more pieces of the fashion puzzle. And it has plenty of runway, if it chooses, to try more, bigger, better, faster.
Volvo major shareholder Industrivarden not planning to sell its shares (translated)
02 JAN 2018
Industrivarden, the Swedish investment company, does not plan to sell its shares in the Swedish truck manufacturer Volvo, according to Dagens Industri. This comes after last week's news that Chinese Geely Holding has acquired activist fund Cevian Capital's substantial stake in Volvo, which has lead to speculation whether Geely might also wish to acquire Industrivarden's 22% stake.
The Swedish business daily cited Sveriges Radio to which Industrivarden's Chairman Fredrik Lundberg said that while the company hopes to be able to collaborate well with Geely, the company has a long term interest in Volvo, which it believes should maintain its Swedish base.
The item also noted that several institutional shareholders in Volvo are considering forming a united group to make it clear that their shares are not for sale.
Technip Offshore Finland could be sold, or go through MBO - report (translated)
02 JAN 2018
Technip Offshore Finland, the Finnish ship builder owned by the French shipping group TechnipFMC, could be sold, or undergo a management buy out (MBO), according to Kauppalehti.
The Finnish-language piece cited unknown sources from the US who had claimed that the company is in the process of being sold to outsiders or in an MBO.
The item said that one option is that Technip-FMC will remain as part owner together with the management. The company had sales of EUR 33m last year.
China’s equities led regional gains as property stocks soared in Hong Kong and a gauge of manufacturing strength beat expectations. The dollar slid following its worst year in more than a decade, while gold advanced. An index of Chinese H shares jumped 2.8 percent to head for a 2 1/2-year high, while the Hang Seng Index and stocks on the mainland also rose. Developers were the biggest gainers, boosted by optimism on sales. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed to a record, though markets in Tokyo remain closed until Thursday for Japanese holidays, and New Zealand was also shut Tuesday. Gold climbed for an eighth day, bitcoin held losses and the dollar weakened against almost all major currencies. The China Caixin manufacturing purchasing manager’s index showed a December reading of 51.5, beating the expected 50.7 and up from 50.8 the previous month. A slew of other manufacturing PMIs from around the region showed Taiwan’s at its highest since at least 2015.
Nikkei Closed until Thu Hang Seng +1.81% CSI +1.40% Shanghai 1.22% Shenzen 1.01%
Eur$ 1.2030 CNH 6.4934 CNY 6.4952 JPY 112.65 GBP 1.3533 CHF 0.9734 RUB 57.54 WTI$ 60.66 +0.40%
S&P +0.16% EuroStoxx +0.26% FTSE -0.02% Dax +0.18% SMI Closed
Macro :
- Putin to Meet Israel PM Netanyahu Soon: Interfax
- France Aims to Build Trade Backbone to Beijing Via Moscow: WSJ
- Trump Sees More Stock Market Gains, Companies Moving to U.S.
- IMF’s Lagarde Says Growth Returning to Pre-Crisis Level: JDD
Keep an eye on :
- ABBN SW : ABB’s Voser Says Swiss Must Forge Ahead With Tax Reform: NZZ
- ABE SM : Abertis: Spanish government authorises Hochtief’s IPO; authorisation on Hispasat still pending
- AIR FP : Airbus to Sue Poland Over Canceled Helicopters Contract: DGP
- AF FP : Air France’s Hop! Cancels Flights Due to Pilot Shortages: Figaro
- ATC NA : Starz Warns Altice Negotiation Failure May Cause Service Loss
- ARAMCO IPO : U.K. FCA Is Said to Delay Rule Change for Aramco Listing: Times
- CPG LN : Compass Group Says CEO and 4 Family Members Died in Plane Crash
- CPG LN : Compass Group Advances Blakemore’s Appointment as CEO to Jan. 1
- DASNKE DC : Danske to Be Cautions on High Asset Prices, CEO Tells Borsen
- DBK GY : Deutsche Bank Investors Discussing Boardroom Changes: Telegraph
- DIS US : Disney Says ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Crosses $1 Billion Mark
- DROPBOX IPO : Dropbox IPO May Come in March or April: WSJ
- FSKRS FH : Fiskars Says Direct/Indirect Ownership by Turret,Holdix Over 25%
- IFX GY : Infineon CEO Says Company Not a Primary Takeover Target: BZ
- ISP IM : Viola Could Leave as Vicenza, Veneto Chief in Jan: Repubblica
- UG FP : French New Car Registrations Fall 0.5% in Dec., +4.7% in 2017
- NN NA : NN Executes Legal Merger as Part of Legal Restructuring Process
- RCO FP : Remy Cointreau Says Its Share Buyback Program Ended
- RNO FP : French New Car Registrations Fall 0.5% in Dec., +4.7% in 2017
- SAN SM : Santander to Consider Deals Meeting Strategic Criteria, FT Says
- SAN SM : Santander, Blackstone Venture to Seal EU7B Loan: Confidencial
- SCMP US : Mallinckrodt Ratings May Be Cut by S&P on Sucampo Deal
- GLE FP : SocGen’s Oudea Sees Banking Sector With Fewer Banks in 10Y: FT
- SIE GY : Siemens to Sound Out Sovereign Funds on Healthineers IPO: FAS
- TSCO LN : Co-Op Plans to Open 100 New Food Stores in U.K. in 2018
- TFI FP : TF1’s 2017 Audience Slips Less than French Rivals: Le Figaro
- 2330 TT : TSMC : TSMC Gets Urgent Orders for High-Speed Chips, Eco. Daily Reports
- UN01 GY : Uniper Considering Building New Power Plants in Germany: RP
>>> Up
* Asos Upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank
* Gemalto Upgraded to Equal-weight at Barclays; PT 51 Euros
* Statoil Upgraded to Outperform at RBC; PT 190 Kroner
* Thales Upgraded to Overweight at Barclays; PT 110 Euros
>>> Down
>>> Initiation
* GVC Rated New Overweight at Barclays; PT 10.66 Pounds
>>> Call
>>> Up
* Gemalto Upgraded to Equal-weight at Barclays; PT 51 Euros
* Statoil Upgraded to Outperform at RBC; PT 190 Kroner
* Thales Upgraded to Overweight at Barclays; PT 110 Euros
>>> Down
>>> Initiation
* GVC Rated New Overweight at Barclays; PT 10.66 Pounds
>>> Call
Asia Market Update: Broad dollar weakness on the 1st day of trade in 2018, Won surges, Manufacturing PMIs mixed
***Headlines/Economic Data***
General Trend: Equity markets (ex-Japan) open 2018 generally higher, led by China and Hong Kong
-Singapore Q4 GDP above estimates (first major Asian economy to issue Q4 GDP data)
- China Dec Caixin PMI Manufacturing rises to highest level since Aug 2017
- Taiwan Dec Manufacturing PMI hits multi-year high
-Asian currencies gain: Korean Won (KRW) trades at highest level since Oct 2014; Singapore Dollar (SGD) hits highest since mid-2016; Taiwan Dollar (TWD) continues to trade at over 4 year highs
Japan
-Nikkei 225 closed for holiday
Looking ahead: Japan to be closed for holiday on Wednesday
Korea
-Kospi opened +0.3%
- KRW rises to 3-yr high against USD, attributed to exporters selling dollars
-(KR) South Korea Unification Min Cho: confirms have offered high ranking talks with North Korea on Jan 9th
- (KR) South Korea Dec PMI Manufacturing: 49.9 v 51.2 prior
-(KR) South Korea Finance Chief: Reiterates to take steps on drastic fx moves
- (KR) Bank of Korea Gov: Further interest rate hikes should not be related to retirement of BoK Gov, but instead based on economic indicators
-(KR) South Korea President Moon: To put policy in focus on jobs and household income
-(KR) South Korea sells KRW1.0T in 3-month monetary stabilization bonds at 1.55%
- 005380.KR (Hyundai Motor) Vice Chairman: 2017 was the hardest year due to China sales slump; expect car demand to slow in major markets; -3% at the open
- 000270.KR (Kia Motor) Guides 2018 vehicles sales 2.88M units; Sees rising uncertainties including strong Korean Won (KRW) and geopolitical risks; -1.6%
035250.KR (Kangwon Land): To reduce casino operating hours and table facilities; -10.6%
-090430.KR (Amore Pacific): +2.5%: China govt lifts ban on group tours to South Korea, according to a South Korean press report
China/Hong Kong
-Hang Seng opened +0.4% before rising over 1% above 30,000; Shanghai Composite +0.2%
Hang Seng Property Index +2.8%: China may not adopt a property tax until 2020, said an earlier released Chinese press report.
- (CN) CHINA DEC GOVT OFFICAL MANUFACTURING PMI: 51.6 V 51.6E; NON-MANUFACTURING: 55.0 V 54.7E
- (HK) Macau Dec Gaming Rev +14.6% v ~20%e; Hang Seng Services Index -2% (weighed down by gaming stocks, Wynn Macau -3.5%, MGM China -3.5%)
- (CN) PBoC: Skips OMO for 7th straight session; Net drains CNY290B
- (CN) PBOC Gov Zhou reiterates prudent monetary policy and reasonable loan growth in 2018 – press
-(CN) CHINA DEC CAIXIN PMI MANUFACTURING: 51.5 V 50.7E (highest reading since Aug 2017)
- USD/CNY (CN) China PBoC sets yuan reference rate at 6.5079 v 6.5342 prior (strongest level since Sept 11th)
-(HK) Overnight HK$ HIBOR -66bps (most since Nov 1st); 1-week HIBOR -47bps (most since Oct 2008)
-54.HK Sells 66.69% stake in Hopewell Highway Infrastructure
Australia/New Zealand
-ASX 200 opened flat, trading slightly lower with little direction; closed -0.2%
- (AU) Australia Dec CoreLogic House Price Index M/M: -0.4% v -0.1% prior
-(AU) Analysts caution that the risk of a rise in Australian inflation has not been adequately priced in - AFR
- BLK.AU To raise A$36M through entitlement offering; to defer repayment of term loan to Jan 15th 2018; Names Milan Jerkovic as Executive Chairman as part of recapitalization plan
Other Asia
- (SG) SINGAPORE Q4 ADVANCED GDP SAAR Q/Q: 2.8% V 1.6%E; Y/Y: 3.1% V 2.6%E; 2017 GDP: 3.5% v 2.0% prior v 3.0-3.5% official target
North America
- (US) Democrats in high-cost, high-tax states are devising ways to blunt the impact of the recently passed tax law’s clampdown on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction – press
Looking ahead: US Weekly API Crude Oil Inventories to be released on Tuesday
Europe
- (ES) Spain Econ Min sees Catalonia crisis cost at €1.0B
-(UK) Economists see UK 2018 GDP growth of no more than 1.5% vs 1.4% forecast of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – FT Poll; The economists expect the BoE to raise rates by 50bps in 2018.
Looking Ahead: UK Dec Manufacturing PMI to be released
***Levels as of 01:00ET***
- Nikkei225 closed, Hang Seng +1.7%; Shanghai Composite +1.0%; ASX200 -0.1%, Kospi +0.3%
- Equity Futures: S&P500 +0.2%; Nasdaq100 +0.2%, Dax untraded; FTSE100 -0.1%
- EUR 1.2023-1.2004; JPY 112.79-112.58; AUD 0.7843-0.7795;NZD 0.7122-0.7058
- Feb Gold -0.0% at $1,309/oz; Feb Crude Oil +0.3% at $60.62/brl; Mar Copper -0.5% at $3.28/lb