Breakfast Today

On balance, most concluded he had been slightly more dovish than expected. ECB President, Mario Draghi, certainly did a good job in keeping the markets guessing during his Central Bank's Monetary Policy Statement and press conference yesterday afternoon. But in saying "We were unanimous in setting no precise date for when to discuss changes in the future," and going on to point out "In other words, our discussions should take place in the Fall, or in the Autumn, since we are in Europe", he appears to have ruled out the opportunity for next month's Jackson Hole Symposium to be his platform for the big announcement. Whilst he is simply putting off the inevitable, Draghi's insistence that "Inflation is not where we want it to be or where it should be", while also voicing commitment to bolster the bond buying programme should it be necessary, the 'can' now appears to have been kicked down the road to either the September or October meetings. This all left the US in a rather anticlimactic mood, having already received mixed macro news inputs as the Labor Department reported a fall in weekly first-time unemployment claims, while the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a report showing that regional manufacturing activity grew at a notably slower rate in July and the Conference Board said its index of leading indicators rose by more than expected for the month of June. With a Bloomberg report suggesting the investigation into association between Trump's Campaign and Russia was also to be extended into his business dealings, the three major averages drifted downward shortly after the opening on profit taking, going on to traded fractionally either side of unchanged for the remainder of the session. Reporting majors Travelers and American Express both weighed on the Dow Jones after releasing dull second quarterlies, while Best Buy and Home Depot were hit after Sears said it would start selling its Kenmore line of refrigerators and stoves on Amazon.com; Trucking, Railroad, Telecom, and Steels also all met modest selling. Post-close, Microsoft firmed 0.9% in after-hours trading, on reporting that its quarterly profits had more than doubled, boosted by strong demand in its cloud operations plus tax benefits. So far, the Wall Street's Q2'2017 earnings have tended to surpass consensus expectations, which presently appears to be the principal bull support for equity indices which remain at or close to their record highs. Treasuries found demand as the ECB deflated some concerns over an early shift toward reducing monetary stimulus. The yield on the benchmark ten-year note fell as low as 2.239%, before settling virtually unchanged at 2.266%. Crude prices rose to a seven-week high Thursday, with the international benchmark Brent touching the $50/barrel level for the first time in more than a month during US hours, although this succumbed to profit taking late in the session and crude went on to decline fractionally during Asian trading. Traders eyeing the recent decline in US stockpiles, will be sensitive to this evening's weekly US Oil Rig Count data and Monday's meeting of OPEC delegates to review an extension to existing production cuts and discuss now also including Libya and Nigeria into the agreement. Following recent strength coming from Bank of America Merrill Lynch's bullish stance on Asia-Pacific equities, the region's markets appear to have somewhat run out of steam this morning. Just ahead of their close, most had made just fractional moves with only the S&P/ASX-200 showing a reasonable decline with its export plays being pressurised by the AUS$'s recent strengthening against the US$, while weak Energy stocks also kept the Nikkei pointing downward. European shares started on a positive note yesterday, following new record highs amongst the principal US indices on Wednesday and a firm closing of Asian trading first thing Thursday morning. This was further bolstered by strong earnings reports from media heavyweight Publicis and consumer giant, Unilever (ULVR.L). The STOXX 600 peaked almost 0.5% higher immediately before the ECB president spoke, but then collapsed into the red where it remained following the US's lacklustre opening. The Euro dipped slightly during this morning's Asian session, having extended recent gains to hit its highest level against the US$ since August 2015 yesterday. The IMF Board this morning has reportedly accepted Greece's latest bailout plans 'In Principle', while an earthquake in the county resulted in 2 deaths and multiple casualties. By comparison, the FTSE-100 opened in the positive yesterday, going on to rise further on receipt of better than expected June retail sales data and then just blipped modestly on the ECB statement, to close with a good 0.77% gain on the day. The highly international index benefitted from a further sharp fall in Sterling as the EU's Chief Brexit Negotiator, Michel Barnier, highlighted continuing "fundamental" differences over the issue of citizen rights and willingness to recognise obligation to pay exit bill that remained. Amongst individual stocks, Sports Direct (SPD.L) rallied as full year profits highlighted the damage Sterling's devaluation had inflicted to its full year profits, while easyJet (EZJ.L) led a round of profit taking amongst European airlines. There are limited macro releases due today. The UK details just its Public Sector Net Borrowing for June, while nothing is due form the EU and the US provides its Baker Hughes US oil Rig Count. UK corporates due to provide earnings or trading updates include Vodafone (VOD.L), Homeserve (HSV.L), Close Brothers (CBG.L), AO World (AO..L), Acacia Mining (ACA.L), Record (REC.L), Beazley (BEZ.L) and Capital & Counties Properties (CAPC.L). Majors reporting in the US later today include General Electric and Honeywell. Lacklustre overnight markets bode for a similar European opening this morning, with the FTSE-100 seen trading between 0 to 10 points down in early business.