Author: train2invest Admins

EARNING RELEASES APRIL 29, 2022

April 25 – April 29

Monday April 25

Japan department store sales

Germany business climate

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canadian wholesale trade for March.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. Chicago Fed National Activity Index for Match.

(11 a.m. ET) Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

Earnings include: Coca-Cola Co.

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Tuesday April 26

Japan jobless rate

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canadian manufacturing sales for March.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S durable goods and core orders for March. The Street is forecasting increases of 1.0 per cent and 0.5 per cent from February, respectively.

(9 a.m. ET) U.S. Case-Shiller Home Price Index (20 city) for February. Consensus is a rise of 1.5 per cent from January and 19.2 per cent year-over-year.

(9 a.m. ET) U.S. FHFA House Price Index for February. Consensus is an increase of 1.5 per cent month-over-month and 18.5 per cent year-over-year.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. new home sales for March. Consensus is an annualized rate rise of 0.4 per cent.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index for April.

Earnings include: Air Canada; Canadian National Railway Co.; Capstone Mining Corp.; First National Financial Corp.; First Quantum Minerals Ltd.; General Electric Co.; General Motors Co.; Morguard North American Residential; PepsiCo Inc.; Raytheon Technologies Corp.; Texas Instruments Inc.; United Parcel Service Inc.; Visa Inc.; Winpak Ltd.

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Wednesday April 27

Bank of Japan monetary policy meeting (thru Thursday)

Germany consumer confidence

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. goods trade deficit for March.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. wholesale and retail inventories for March.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. pending home sales for March. Consensus is a decline of 0.5 per cent from February.

(6:30 p.m. ET) Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers appear before the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce

Earnings include: Aecon Group Inc.; Alamos Gold Inc.; Allied Properties REIT; Alphabet Inc.; Atco Ltd.; Boeing Co.; Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.; Canadian Utilities Ltd.; Cenovus Energy Inc.; CGI Inc.; Choice Properties REIT; FirstService Corp.; Lundin Mining Corp.; Meta Platforms Inc; Methanex Corp.; New Gold Inc.; Norfolk Southern Corp.; PayPal Holdings Inc.; Qualcomm Corp.; Teck Resources Ltd.; T-Mobile US Inc.; Yamana Gold Inc.

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Thursday April 28

Japan retail sales and industrial production

Germany CPI

Euro zone economic and consumer confidence

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours for February is released.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. initial jobless claims for week of April 23. Estimate is 180,000, down 4,000 from the previous week.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. real GDP and GDP deflator for Q1. Consensus is annualized rate rises of 1.0 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively.

(11 a.m. ET) U.S. Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Activity for April.

Also: Ontario budget

Earnings include: AbbVie Inc.; Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.; AltaGas Ltd.; Amazon.com Inc.; Apple Inc.; Baytex Energy Corp.; BCE Inc.; Caterpillar Inc.; Celestica Inc.; Constellation Software Inc.; Eldorado Gold Corp.; Eli Lilly and Co.; Ford Motor Co.; Intel Corp.; McDonald’s Corp.; Merck & Co. Inc.; Microsoft Corp.; Newcrest Mining Ltd.; OceanaGold Corp.; Pason Systems Inc.; Precision Drilling Corp.; Secure Energy Services Inc.; Southern Copper Corp.; Stryker Corp.; TFI International Inc.; Twitter Inc.; West Fraser Timber Co Ltd.; Whitecap Resources Inc.

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APRIL 22, 2022: The close: Dow dives nearly 1,000 points, TSX suffers worst day of 2022, as traders fret about higher rates

Wall Street tumbled more than 2.5% on Friday, ensuring the three main benchmarks ended in negative territory for the week, as surprise earnings news and increased certainty around aggressive near-term interest rate rises took its toll on investors. The TSX, fully swept up in the action, was down more than 2% – its worst day of 2022.

It was the third straight week of losses for both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, while the Dow Jones posted its fourth weekly decline in a row.

For the Dow, its 2.82% drop on Friday was its biggest one-day fall since October 2020.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index ended down 464.03 points, or 2.1%, at 21,186.38, its biggest decline since last November and its lowest closing level since March 1. For the week, the index was down 3.1%.

Exaggerated trading swings have become more common recently, as traders adjust to new data points from earnings, as well as when rates will rise again. For the Nasdaq, Friday was the eighth session in April, out of 15 trading days this month, where the index either rose or fell by more than 2%.

“It’s not very common, over the course of my time doing this job, for the market to move 2% in either direction and to think ‘there’s not too much to read into that’,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.

“That’s not normal, but that’s just how things have been for such a long time now.”

Concerns about risks from interest rate hikes continued to reverberate after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s hawkish pivot on Thursday, where he backed moving more quickly to combat inflation and said a 50-basis-point increase would be “on the table” when the Fed meets in May.

The idea of “front-end loading” the U.S. central bank’s retreat from super-easy monetary policy, which Powell articulated support for on Thursday, has also forced traders to re-evaluate how aggressive subsequent rate rises would be.

The Bank of Canada has also turned more hawkish. It could consider a larger rate increase than the half-point move it made last week, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Thursday.

Canadian economic data showed the largest monthly gain in producer prices since the series began in January 1956.

All 10 of the TSX’s major sectors lost ground, with the heavily-weighted financial services sector falling 2.6% and technology ending 2.5% lower.

Energy was down 1.9% as U.S. crude futures settled 1.7% lower at $102.07 a barrel. Oil was burdened by the prospect of higher interest rates, weaker global growth and COVID-19 lockdowns in China hurting demand.

The TSX materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, lost 2.6%. It included a decline of 9.1% for copper producer First Quantum Minerals Ltd as copper prices fell.

The CBOE Volatility index, also known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, jumped on Friday, ending at its highest level since mid-March.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, the latest earnings forecasts to jolt investors came from healthcare, with HCA Healthcare and Intuitive Surgical Inc the worst performers on the S&P 500.

HCA slumped 21.8% after reporting a downbeat profit view, while other hospital operators felt the contagion: Tenet Healthcare, Community Health Systems and Universal Health Services all tumbled between 14% and 17.9%.

Surgical robot maker Intuitive Surgical dropped 14.3% after warning of weaker demand from hospitals due to tighter finances.

All 11 major S&P 500 sectors were down, although the 3.6% slip by healthcare was outdone by materials, which was off 3.7%.

Materials was weighed down by Nucor Corp – down 8.3% after hitting a record high after posting earnings on Thursday – and Freeport-McMoRan Inc, which slipped 6.8% as investors fretted over how interest rate hikes would impact copper miners.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 981.36 points, or 2.82%, to 33,811.4, the S&P 500 lost 121.88 points, or 2.77%, to 4,271.78 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 335.36 points, or 2.55%, to 12,839.29.

For the week, the Dow dipped 1.9%, the S&P dropped 2.8%, and the Nasdaq declined 3.8%.

The prospect of a more hawkish Fed has led to a rocky start to the year for equities, with Friday’s sell-off taking declines on both the S&P and Dow since the start of the year beyond 10%.

The trend is more pronounced in tech and growth shares whose valuations are more vulnerable to rising bond yields. The Nasdaq is down 17.9% in 2022.

Earnings are due next week for the four biggest U.S. companies by market capitalization: Apple, Microsoft , Amazon and Google parent Alphabet.

The quartet declined between 2.4% and 4.1% on Friday. Meta Platforms Inc, which also has results on deck for next week, dropped 2.1%, taking its losses in the last three days to 15.3%.

Investors are worried after streaming giant Netflix Inc’s dismal earnings earlier this week sent shockwaves through big tech and stay-at-home darlings which benefited from pandemic factors such as lockdown measures.

The volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.66 billion shares, compared with the 11.67 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

Canada & USA

PUBLISHED TUE, APR 19 20228:50 AM EDT

• U.S. homebuilding unexpectedly rose in March, but starts for single-family housing tumbled amid rising mortgage rates.
• Housing starts increased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.793 million units last month, the Commerce Department said.
• Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts slipping to a rate of 1.745 million units.
• Permits for future homebuilding increased 0.4% to a rate of 1.873 million units last month.

U.S. homebuilding unexpectedly rose in March, but starts for single-family housing tumbled amid rising mortgage rates.

Housing starts increased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.793 million units last month, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Data for February was revised higher to a rate of 1.788 million units from the previously reported 1.769 million units.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts slipping to a rate of 1.745 million units. Permits for future homebuilding increased 0.4% to a rate of 1.873 million units last month.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.0% during the week ended April 14, the highest since February 2011, up from 4.72% in the prior week, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. Further increases are likely with the Federal Reserve adopting an aggressive monetary policy posture as it battles sky-high inflation.

The Fed in March raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis points, the first hike in more than three years. Economists expect the U.S. central bank will hike rates by 50 basis points next month, and soon start trimming its asset portfolio.

Rising borrowing costs are combining with higher home prices to reduce housing affordability for first-time buyers. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market index dropped to a seven-month low in April, with builders blaming the “jump in mortgage rates and persistent supply chain disruptions.”

Still, record low housing supply should continue to underpin homebuilding this year. There is a record backlog of houses approved for construction that are yet to be started.

Goldman Sachs estimates that housing starts will increase 5% to 1.7 million this year, arguing that “when housing markets are tight, like they are today, homebuilders are likely to keep building because they should have little fear that homes will sit vacant after completion.”

Single-family housing starts, which account for the biggest share of homebuilding, dropped 1.7% to a rate of 1.200 million units in March.

Bay Street Seen Opening Lower On Weak Commodity Prices, Global Cues

Lower futures amid falling commodity prices, weak global cues and looming interest rate hikes are set to weigh down Canadian stocks Friday morning.

Data on Canadian retail sales for the month of February is due at 8:30 AM ET. Retail sales in Canada likely declined by 0.5% month-over-month in February of 2022, preliminary estimates showed.

In January, retail sales rose 3.2% over a month earlier, as against preliminary estimates of a 2.4% increase and compared to an upwardly revised 2% fall in December.

A report on industrial produce prices and raw materials prices in Canada for the month of March is also due at 8:30 AM ET.

The Canadian market ended sharply lower on Thursday, weighed down by sharp losses in materials, energy and technology sectors.

Rising inflation, slowing growth and tighter monetary policy rendered the mood bearish. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended with a loss of 347.97 points or 1.58% at 21,650.41.

Canadian retail sales edged up 0.1%

Statistics Canada says retail sales rose 0.1 per cent to $59.9-billion in February as gains in sales at clothing and clothing accessories stores and gasoline stations were offset by lower sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers.

The agency says core retail sales – which exclude sales at gasoline stations and motor vehicle and parts dealers – rose 1.4 per cent.

Sales at clothing and clothing accessories stores gained 15.1 per cent for the month, while building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers rose 5.6 per cent. Sales at gasoline stations added 6.2 per cent.

Meanwhile, sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers fell 5.1 per cent, the largest drop for the group since a 6.2 per cent drop in December 2020.

In volume terms, retail sales were down 0.4 per cent in February.

Looking ahead, Statistics Canada says its initial estimate for retail sales in March suggests a gain of 1.4 per cent for the month, but cautioned the figure will be revised.

Stock futures advance as investors digest earnings, await speech from Fed’s Powell

Stock futures rose in morning trading Thursday as investors digested more quarterly reports from the likes of Tesla and United Airlines and awaited a policy speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 184 points, or 0.52%. S&P 500 futures ticked up 0.69% and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.95%.

First-quarter reports drove premarket moves. Tesla rose nearly 7% after better-than-expected earnings, while United added 7.5% after the airline forecasted a profit in 2022.

Investors were looking to a speech from Powell, who will talk at 1 p.m. ET during the International Monetary Fund Debate on the Global Economy. The discussion will be moderated by CNBC’s Sara Eisen.

Despite market expectations for a series of aggressive interest rate increases, Fed officials in recent days have talked down making any dramatic moves.

Regional presidents Mary Daly of San Francisco, Charles Evans of Chicago and Raphael Bostic of Atlanta all have said that while they see the need to hike rates to tame inflation, they don’t want to do anything that would halt the expansion. Daly did concede that tighter policy could trigger a mild recession but she said that’s not her most likely case.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard has been the outlier, saying earlier in the week that he’s open to a 0.75 percentage point increase at the May meeting to help temper inflation running at a more than 40-year high.

Stocks are coming off a mixed session Wednesday. The Dow rose 280 points, or 0.8%, boosted by strong earnings from Procter & Gamble, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite was dragged down 1% by Netflix’s post-report plunge. The S&P 500 finished flat.

Netflix shares on Wednesday posted the biggest one-day decline since 2004 after the streamer reported its first subscriber loss in more than a decade. Other streaming companies like Disney and Roku also fell, and other tech stocks were lower.

“It continues to be a pretty bifurcated market,” said Dave Grecsek, managing director in investment strategy and research at wealth management firm Aspiriant. “Some of the more defensive, value-style companies are enjoying good returns. The flipside is some of those more growth-style tech names are going to be struggling.”

Investors are awaiting quarterly reports from companies like AT&T, American Airlines and Snap on Thursday.

Weekly jobless claims are also slated for release Thursday morning.

Inflation rate shatters expectations, hits 31-year high

Canada’s inflation rate hit a new three-decade high in March and blew past expectations on Bay Street, an unwelcome development for central bankers trying to slow the acceleration.

The Consumer Price Index rose 6.7 per cent in March from a year earlier, a percentage point higher than February’s rate, 5.7 per cent, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday. Financial analysts were expecting an inflation rate of 6.1 per cent. It was the highest rate since January, 1991, when the federal goods and services tax took effect.

Steeper inflation is getting tougher for Canadians to avoid. Around two-thirds of CPI items are experiencing annual price gains of more than 3 per cent, such as gasoline (39.8 per cent), shelter (6.8 per cent) and household appliances (9.4 per cent).

Several factors are driving the inflation run-up, including persistent supply chain disruptions and the Russia-Ukraine war, which has pushed up commodity prices. Moreover, as public-health restrictions ease, people are unleashing their pandemic savings in service industries such as travel, and the increase in demand is contributing to the price surge.

Inflation has now exceeded the Bank of Canada’s target range of 1 per cent to 3 per cent for a full year, and that streak should last a while longer: The central bank expects inflation to average more than 5 per cent in 2022.

The Bank of Canada has been moving aggressively to rein in runaway price growth. The bank raised its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point last week to 1 per cent – the largest increase at a single decision since 2000. It usually raises rates by a quarter-point.

After the outsized inflation reading, several analysts said the Bank of Canada would raise rates by another half-point at its next decision on June 1.

“The longer we’re stuck in this high-inflation regime, the more people start to think that it’s here forever,” said Jimmy Jean, chief economist at Desjardins Securities. “That’s why [the Bank of Canada] needs to act as swiftly as possible to preserve their credibility.”

Gas prices had a big impact on Wednesday’s report, jumping 11.8 per cent in a single month. The cost of groceries rose 8.7 per cent, the largest annual increase since 2009. Pasta products climbed nearly 18 per cent, butter by 16 per cent and fresh milk by 7.7 per cent.

The average of the Bank of Canada’s core measures of annual inflation – which strip out volatile price swings, such as with gas – rose to 3.8 per cent from 3.5 per cent in February.

Inflation is also picking up in pandemic-hit sectors. The cost of restaurant meals rose 5.4 per cent over the past year, up from 4.7 per cent in February. Traveller accommodation prices soared 24.4 per cent on an annual basis, while air transportation jumped 8.3 per cent in March alone.

“Strong demand for domestic travel and trips to the United States during the March break contributed to higher prices this month,” Statscan said.

Several economists said on Wednesday that Canada’s annual inflation rate may have peaked in March, or will soon. For one, gas prices have eased somewhat in April thus far. And the inflation rate could benefit from base effects – that is, comparisons to the accelerating CPI of a year earlier, which could dampen the annual percentage change.

“Hitting a peak is just one milestone, but you’re looking at inflation at 6.7 per cent, and you have to bring it down to 2 per cent,” said Mr. Jean, referring to the Bank of Canada’s target. “That’s going to take a long, long time.”

Some financial analysts have said that central bankers, in Canada and elsewhere, were slow to recognize and react to the inflationary threat. During the pandemic recovery, the Bank of Canada has continually raised its inflation forecast. It recently projected that CPI growth would average 5.3 per cent this year, up from a forecast of 4.2 per cent in January and 3.4 per cent in October.

The central bank does not see inflation returning to 2 per cent until 2024.

A key concern among economists is that Canadian consumers and businesses – who negotiate wages and set prices, respectively – expect inflation to remain high for the next two years, according to Bank of Canada surveys, which could keep CPI on an elevated path for some time.

The stakes are high for the central bank, which is looking to keep inflation expectations in check and guard its reputation as steward of low and stable inflation.

“We have a full-on inflation issue, and the central banks need to play catch-up, with haste,” Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter wrote to clients.

To that end, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem has said more hikes in interest rates are on the way, setting up the quickest cycle of monetary policy tightening in decades. Already, borrowing rates for mortgages and other loans are rising quickly, a source of potential stress for households carrying debt.

“By making borrowing more expensive and increasing the return on saving, a higher policy interest rate dampens spending, reducing overall demand in the economy,” Mr. Macklem said last week in prepared remarks alongside the rate decision. “And with demand starting to run ahead of the economy’s supply capacity, we need that to happen to bring the economy into balance and cool domestic inflation.”

Stock futures gain on earnings optimism, jobless claims on tap

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/stock-futures-4-21-2022