REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
- Most Asian markets closed higher, led by the Nikkei at +1.53%. European markets are also making marginal gains.
- The Australian dollar tanked today on weaker economic data and dovish talk, losing -1.52% against the USD. "The rates market has promptly priced in a rate cut (to 2.5%) for the August 6 RBA meeting with even greater conviction than before," SocGen's Kit Juckes told us.
- Our week of earth-titling data kicks off in earnest today with the release of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index for May at 9 am. The index has now seen 12-straight months of gains, and Econoday's consensus says it's in for one more, at +1.3%. Then at 10 am, the Conference Board releases its latest consumer confidence data for July. That index has also seen several months of consecutive gains, but is expected to pull back slightly for a reading of 81.0.
- Barclays will issue $8.9 billion in new shares as it bows to regulators to plug what the Wall Street Journal called "a larger than expected" capital shortfall. "The bank hit a fresh hurdle in June when the U.K. Prudential Regulation Authority ordered it to increase the amount of equity it holds against total assets, a measure called the leverage ratio," Margot Patrick and Max Colchester report. "The bank said it needs £12.8 billion [$19.6 billion] to push that ratio above 3%, the minimum required by U.K. bank supervisors.
- The New York Times editorial board came out guns blazing in support of Janet Yellen for next Fed chair, and basically condemned the prospect of Larry Summers. "...she is reminiscent of other accomplished women with whom Mr. Summers, or his supporters, or both have tangled in the past," the board wrote.
- Chrysler profit jumped 16% on strong U.S. sales, especially for pick-ups. But it lowered its year-end profit forecast to between $1.7 billion and $2.2 billion, down from $2.2 billion originally, WSJ's Christina Rogers said. Parent company Fiat's shares on Italy's stock market were down more than -4%.
- Pfizer, Waste Management, Sprint, and Goodyear will all announce earnings today.
- NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner fell from 1st to 4th place — a 10-point drop, to 16% of likely voters saying they'd vote for him — in the latest Quinnipac poll for the Democratic primary. Christine Quinn now leads at 27%. The poll also said 53% of likely voters say he should drop out.
- CBS temporarily went dark for many Time Warner Cable subscribers last night as the two media companies failed to reach an agreement on retransmission fees (i.e. the right to broadcast a network's programming). "The two sides negotiated through the day Monday to avoid a programming blackout," the AP reported. "Both parties kept extending the deadline before the cable provider appeared to replace regular programming on the network with a company statement for a brief, undetermined amount of time."
- More than 200 prisoners escaped from a facility in northwestern Pakistan after a small army of armed men laid siege. A unit of the group responsible for the Mumbai attacks has been blamed, the New York Times Ismail Khan reports.