What you need to know before the US open
It seems investors haven’t quite recovered from Janet Yellen’s press conference yesterday. In it she hinted that US interest rates could begin rising sooner than expected.
S&P 500 futures and US Treasury futures are both lower, in the wake of yesterday’s selloff.
European bond markets are still taking a hit on the message, pushing up borrowing costs and impacting emerging markets most severely. The yuan is still sliding against the dollar.
Economic data wise, initial jobless claims came in lower than expectations, with 320,000 signing up for unemployment benefit last week, from 315,000 a week earlier. That takes continuing claims to 2.89m.
Corporate news
ConAgra, the US packaged food company, saw profits leap in the third quarter, with sales in its private label business pushing net income up 92 per cent to $236.9m.
And Pimco’s cut its holdings of Brazilian bonds by more than a third to $6.2bn, after they pulled down performance last year for it and bond ruler Bill Gross.
Data in focus
- 2.00pm: US Feb CB leading indicators
- 2.00pm: US existing home sales
- 2.00pm: US Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey
- 7.00pm: US American Petroleum Institute monthly report
- 8.30pm: bank stress test info