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Political Update

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What’s in Today’s Report:

  • Political Update
  • Yield Curve Steepening:  A Future Headwind?

Futures are slightly lower as markets further digest the week’s rally following a quiet night of news.

The outlook for a stimulus bill to occur in 2020 has dimmed due to the looming Georgia Senate run-offs on Jan 5th, and that’s created a mild headwind on stocks.

On the vaccine front, Moderna (MRNA) announced that its Phase 3 trial accrued enough COVID-19 cases to be able to submit findings to regulators, so results are imminent (i.e. any day or over the next few weeks).

Today the key report is Jobless Claims (E: 741K) and markets will want to continue to see those numbers decline (or at least stay stable) as it’s looking more and more likely that stimulus will be delayed into 2021.  We also get CPI (E: 0.2%, 1.3%) and comments from Fed Chair Powell (9:30 a.m. ET), but neither should move markets unless there’s a big surprise lurking.

Political Update

/in /by

What’s in Today’s Report:

  • Political Update
  • S&P 500: Market Multiples Price Chart

U.S. stock futures are up over 1% this morning, tracking solid gains in international markets after China’s central bank initiated another round of emergency stimulus overnight.

The PBOC has injected over $240B into the financial system this week to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Politically, the official results for the Iowa caucuses have been delayed due to technical issues with voting apps but sources say that the results should be released later today.

Looking into today’s session, there are two lesser followed economic data points due out: Motor Vehicle Sales (E: 16.8MM) and Factory Orders (E: 1.2%) while no Fed officials are scheduled to speak.

That will leave focus on the delayed results from the Iowa caucuses as well as earnings from several big names including: DIS ($1.43), F ($0.17), STX ($2.72), ALL ($3.12), PRU ($2.01).

Lastly, the market remains sensitive to the coronavirus outbreak and any significantly negative headlines regarding the spread of the virus or a rising mortality rate could weigh on stocks again.