- US and retail sales fell for a second straight month.
- U.S.
business inventories rose 0.3% after an unrevised 0.2% decrease in April.
- Sales
fell 0.2%, the biggest decline since July 2016, after being unchanged in April.
- U.S. Consumer prices were
unchanged in June.
- Chances of a U.S. rate hike
in December fell to 47% from 55%.
- All this points to tame inflation and subdued expectations
of strong economic growth in the second quarter.
- CAD derived extra support after the Bank of Canada raised
its overnight rate target by 25 bp to 0.75%.
- Drill, baby, drill. Baker Hughes says the worldwide rig
count for June was 2,041, up 106 from May and up 634 from June 2016
- U.S. Non-farm payrolls rose by 222,000 jobs last month,
driven by hefty gains in healthcare, government, restaurants and professional
and business services sectors, the Labor Department said on Friday. Beating
economists' expectations for a 179,000 increase.
- Department of Labor said that Average hourly earnings in the
U.S. rose to a seasonally adjusted 0.2%, from 0.1% in the preceding month whose
figure was revised down from 0.2%. Analysts had expected Average hourly
earnings to rise to 0.3% last month.
- German Industrial Production rose 1.2% vs. 0.3% forecast
- MoM Canada's PMI rose to 61.6 from 53.8.
- The Canadian unemployment rate fell to 6.5%, from 6.6% MoM.
- MoM U.K. industrial production fell to -0.1%, from 0.2%. Analysts
had expected U.K. industrial production to rise 0.4% last month.
- After a record 17.55 million units sold in 2016, the U.S.
auto industry has posted declining sales for the last four months, with high
consumer discounts and inventory levels posing concerns.
- Not much for the gold bulls to be excited about. Central
banks are not so accommodating anymore and inflation - so far - isn't an issue.
- The current Australian drought
may be responsible for a YoY plunge in wheat production of more than 40% -
smallest crop in a decade.
- Minneapolis wheat, a specific focus of grain market
attention since the drought began, is leading the way. Temperatures in the
northern plains spring wheat belt have seen temps above 100 and more heat may
be on the way.
Our Dow Theory interpretation is back to bullish
- China: At the end of 2007 private dept to GDP stood at 118%
- at the end of 2016 it stood at 211%.
- Trump announced duties on Canadian softwood of 7.7%.
- The IMF lowered its outlook for the US economy from 2.3% growth
rate to 2.1%.
- The ISM said its index of national factory activity rose to
a reading of 57.8 last month, its best performance since August 2014, from 54.9
in May.
- Germany (Reuters) - Euro zone growth is stronger than
expected and this will enable the European Central Bank to slowly normalize its
monetary policy and end a "crazy situation" of negative interest
rates, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.
- German manufacturing growth rose to 59.6 from 59.5 in
May to reach its highest level in 74 months.
- (L.A. Times) The main ingredient of the pesticide Roundup
will be added to a list of chemicals that California believes are linked to
cancer, and products that contain the compound will have to carry a warning
label by next year.
- The city of Ahvaz in southwest Iran posted the
country’s hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon “53.7°C” (128.7
degrees Fahrenheit), and may have tied the world record for the most extreme
high temperature.
- "My cost to produce sugar at Sao Martinho is something
close to 13.5 cents a pound," and the group was a "very
efficient" producer.
- YoY Argentina’s tax revenues rose 29.8% percent in June.
- Brazil posted a trade surplus of $7.195 billion last month,
the second largest on record and the biggest ever for the month of June.
- Chinas PMI rose to 50.4 in June, above the 49.5 level forecast, and up from
May's reading of 49.6, the first contraction in 11 months.
