July 19, 2018 - THE BELL IS ABOUT TO RING

July 19, 2018 – THE BELL IS ABOUT TO RING!!!

1.     Another important Day for Earnings

As the weather for Q2 earnings continue to hover, a peek look at some of the major Earnings of yesterday & today:

Yesterday’s Earnings

Abbott Labs – Released as EPS $0.73 beats by $0.02 & Revenue $7.77B beats by $60B

American Express - Released as EPS $1.84 beats by $0.02 & Revenue $10B misses by $50M

IBM - Released as EPS $3.08 beats by $0.04 & Revenue $20B beats by $120M

Morgan Stanley – Released as EPS $1.30 beats by $0.19 & Revenue $10.61B beats by $510M

Today’s Earnings

The Travelers - Released as EPS $1.81 misses by $0.16 & Revenue $7.13 beats by $210M

Microsoft – To be released today after Market hours

2.     Dollar Hits fresh 1 year Highs

After the bullish comments of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over his 2 days testimony to the Senators, which further cemented the foundation of 2 more interest rate hikes this year, the dollar hit 1 year highs against various currency.

Chairman Powell’s strong assessment of the US economy which side lined the effects of the on-going changes in the US trade policy, rooted to the demand for the dollar largely.

The U.S. dollar index was up 0.52% at 95.33 this morning, against a basket of 6 major currencies. Now that’s some level it had last seen only on July 13, 2017.

The EUR/USD traded at 1.1588 feeling pressurized against the strong dollar and hit almost 0.44%. The USD/JPY pair strengthened the dollar by 0.14% whereby it reached its near 6 months high of 113.13 and was trading at 113.00. The Great Britain Pound marked a down of 0.67% against the heftier dollar.

3.     Economic’ News & Data

The GBP which was hoping to have a strong Retail Sales to boost its indices and indexes, however to their surprise the retail sales figures were hit really hard.

Assumptions are that due to the FIFA world cup and may be heat wave people preferred to be indoors and not splurge more than the utmost requirements.

Jun Core Retail Sales YoY released at 3.0% compared to the forecasted 3.5%. Jun Retail Sales YoY released at 2.9% compared to the forecasted 3.7%. Jun Retail Sales MoM released at -0.5% compared to the forecasted 0.5%

Jobless claims in US just released their ever-improving lowest jobless claims of 207K since 1969

4.     Commodities hits 1 year low:

Copper, Gold surge to its lowest yearly levels, obviously because dollar is a much better proven investment when it is on an upsurge, and that’s exactly how the dollar is moving currently.

Metals seemed to be on wider sell off while investors are moving towards a strong dollar and also the current trade tensions are also not helping the commodities cause.

Industrial metals have taken a big hit amid the currently prevailing trade war between China & The US, as China is supposedly one of the biggest commodity consumer and if the war intensifies, it might only bring a further bad signal for the commodities market on the whole. Prices of industrial metals have fallen nearly 11% month-to-date and 18% year-to-date.

5.     Markets as of NOW:

DOW Futures	Nasdaq Futures	S&P Futures
25095	7377	2808
-69.00 / -0.27%	-26.00 / -0.35%	-8.00 / -0.28%

China	UK – FTSE100	GERMANY - DAX
2772.98	7627.8	12687.5
-14.28 / -0.51%	+19.5% / +0.25%	-62.00 / -0.49%