General Trend
- Financials trade generally higher after gains in the US, rise in Treasury yields
- Topix Iron/Steel, Insurance, Banks, Brokerage, Electric Appliances and Marine Transportation indices all rose by over 2%
- Australia’s Resources, Energy and Financial indices rose over 2%
- Consumer and Financial firms rose during the morning session in Shanghai, IT and Property indices lagged
- Hang Seng lags despite the rise in Financials; Regulatory concerns related to the US weighed on various cos. (including Alibaba, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, CNOOC, Tencent)
- Geely rises over 5% amid Dec sales and 2021 guidance
- US Treasury Dept. continues to respond to FAQs related to Trump’s executive order on Chinese firms with alleged military links
- China’s Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) sometimes holds weekly news conferences on Thursday
- Samsung Electronics is expected to issue Q4 guidance on Friday (Jan 8th); Kospi rose over 2%
Headlines/Economic Data
Australia/New Zealand
- ASX 200 opened +1.0%
- (AU) AUSTRALIA NOV BUILDING APPROVALS M/M: 2.6% V 2.0%E; Private Sector Houses Approvals M/M: 6.1% v 2.0%e
- (AU) Australia Nov Trade Balance (A$): 5.0B v 6.4Be
Japan
- Nikkei 225 opened +1.1%
- (JP) Japan Econ Min Nishimura: Proposes State of Emergency through Feb 7th (as expected); Japan PM Suga to hold press conference on COVID at 18:00JST (09:00GMT)
- (JP) Japan Nov Labor Cash Earnings Y/Y: -2.2% v -0.9%e (8th consecutive decline); Real Cash Earnings Y/Y: -1.1% v 0.2%e (9th consecutive decline)
Korea
- Kospi opened +0.4%
- (KR) South Korea Vice Fin Min Kim: to closely monitor risks around financial markets, will strengthen financial stability this year amid concerns that idle money is excessively flowing into asset markets
China/Hong Kong
- Hang Seng opened +0.1%; Shanghai Composite opened +0.1%
- (CN) US GOVT REPORTEDLY MULLING ADDING ALIBABA AND TENCENT TO CHINA STOCK BAN; WOULD RESTRICT US INVESTMENT IF ENACTED – PRESS
- (US) NYSE will proceed with delisting of three Chinese telecom firms – press
- (CN) S&P Dow Jones to remove ADRs of China telecoms – press
- (CN) China Govt to provide explicit high level support on fee increases for property managers
- (CN) China PBOC Open Market Operation (OMO): Injects CNY10B in 7-day reverse repos v CNY10B in 7-day reverse repos prior; Net drain CNY110B v Net drain CNY130B prior
- (CN) China PBOC sets Yuan reference rate: 6.4608 v 6.4604 prior
- (CN) China PBoC reiterates stance to continue financial support for small and medium size companies (SMEs), to keep macroeconomic policies consistent next year by not making any “sudden turns” as the foundation of its economic recovery is “not yet solid” – Annual Work Conference
North America
- (US) NBC News and CBS project Democrat Ossoff wins Georgia runoff election, giving Democrats control of the Senate – press
- PLUG Receives $1.5B investment from South Korea’s SK Group via buying 51.4M shares at $29.2893/shr (9.68% of market cap, 11.6% of shares), to partner on Hydrogren Fuel Cells in Asia Markets
- TWTR Locking Trump account for 12-hours; to permanently ban President Trump account with any future violations
- FB Facebook and Instagram lock President Trump accounts for 24-hours
Europe
- (UK) Govt to give renters the ability to cancel fees known as ground rents on homes they had bought for a fixed time period (expected to impact 4.5M people)
Levels as of 12:15ET
- Hang Seng -0.3%; Shanghai Composite +0.2%; Kospi +2.3%; Nikkei225 +1.5%; ASX 200 +1.6%
- Equity Futures: S&P500 +0.5%; Nasdaq100 +0.7%, Dax +0.3%; FTSE100 +0.4%
- EUR 1.2346-1.2316; JPY 103.25-102.95 ;AUD 0.7817-0.7788; NZD 0.7306-0.7284
- Commodity Futures: Gold +0.6% at $1,919/oz; Crude Oil +0.8% at $51.02/brl; Copper +0.0% at $3.66/lb
