Wells just reported that the all important for the US housing market Mortgage Applications number, tumbled to just $58 billion, below the lows hit in 2013, and the lowest since the financial crisis.
Attention was focused on JPM's income statement, and specifically how the bank's high-margin FICC and sales and trading group performed in a time of rising volatility. The answer: quite well with FICC flat, but equity markets revenue surging to a record high.
As DB's Jim Reid says this morning, "Welcome to Friday 13th. As everything is so calm and stable in the world at the moment what could possibly go wrong today?" As of this moment, not much judging by the solid bid in overnight markets.
"... investors are going to say, hell, I feel so patriotic, I’m going to hold on to stocks that have been onvervalued for years already, just to support Bolton and McCain and Tony Blair and Boris Johnson’s fantasies?"
“They did leave it standing so you can remodel it versus tearing it down so you save a lot of money when you can leave a wall up and do a remodel versus a complete tear-down...”
"The CreditWatch negative placement of the long-term ICR reflects our view that these managerial changes demonstrate the difficulty for Deutsche Bank to sustainably improve its earnings profile, a task which is probably more complex than previously anticipated."
"Market participants should become a bit more concerned. Wherever you were in the risk spectrum a year or two ago, we think you should be a touch lower."
Middle East war involving Russia may badly impact energy dependent & fragile EU. Toxic combination due to growing anti-EU and anti-Euro sentiment in many EU nations
The euro has slumped to session lows following the release of the latest ECB Minutes, which were unexpectedly dovish and echoed the Fed's worries about growing trade war, noting "widespread concern" about the the potential impact of protectionism.
It was a relatively subdued trading session, with markets treading water amid modest volumes awaiting news of action in Syria, until just after 6am ET when Trump tweeted that he "never said when an attack on Syria would take place."
“Considering that fragile household balance sheets could be a precipitating factor for the credit cycle to turn, any signs of consumer credit quality deterioration seem worthy of attention."
