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Tuesday August 11, 2015

// August 11th, 2015 // Daily News

Wall Street under pressure after China weakens currency

CNBC.com
U.S. stock index futures indicated a sharply lower open on Tuesday after the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) allowed the yuan to depreciate almost 2 percent against the U.S. dollar, pushing the currency to suffer its biggest fall in over two decades.
The central bank’s surprising move, which it described as a “one-off depreciation” moved the renminbi’s daily peg against the dollar from 6.2298 renminbi against the U.S. dollar, down from 6.1162 on Monday.
The move sent shock waves through currency markets, with analysts seeing the move as the latest aggressive step in the so-called global currency wars.
“Over the last two years, since the Taper Tantrum summer, the yuan has dropped 3 percent against the dollar, but the yen’s fallen 23 percent, the Euro 18 percent, and other Asian currencies have fallen by between 5 percent and 25 percent,” said Kit Juckes, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Societe Generale.
“Relative to those moves, the Chinese adjustment is a token move that won’t do anything to stop the economic slowdown. Whether or not the PBoC intends this to be the start of a series of steps towards a more competitive currency, the domino effect to weaker commodity prices and weaker currencies across EM and resource exporters will be hard to stop,” he added.
European stocks traded lower, with the French CAC and the German DAX both down over 1 percent after the news.
Markets will also be digesting the unexpected news from Google which announced after the close Monday that it will become part of a new publicly traded entity called Alphabet. Shares will still trade under the tickers GOOGL and GOOG. Both classes of the stock jumped more than 6 percent in after-hours trade.
On the data front, preliminary unit labor costs figures for the second quarter at 8:30 a.m. ET and wholesale trade data is due at 10:00 a.m. ET
Earnings from and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers are due before market open. Towers Watson reported quarterly results that beat expectations on both the top and bottom line.
Oil will likely remain a major factor for markets after dollar weakness and a refinery outage helped crude rally nearly 2.5 percent from a near five-month low early Monday. Brent crude was down 88 cents at $49.53, while U.S. crude fell $1.10 to trade at $43.86.

Today’s Inspiration

Exercise Self-Control

by Joyce Meyer – posted August 11, 2015

Adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence), and in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety), and in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.
– 2 Peter 1:5–7

Does the thought of mowing the lawn get you discouraged? Do you think, Oh man, I wish I didn’t have to mow the lawn today. I really dread it. I wish I could just go shopping or do something fun. If so, you’re not abnormal. We are all tempted to think like that, but the good news is God has given you the spirit of self-control and you can choose what you will think about any situation (see 2 Timothy 1:7). You can also choose to do what you know is right no matter how you feel at the moment.

Dale Carnegie said, “You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. “We can conquer worry and fear, and we can also conquer dread. God has given us a spirit of self-control; all we have to do is exercise it and we will experience freedom from fear and dread.

Lord, I thank You that I don’t have to live bound by what I feel about situations. Strengthen my mind and thoughts with the power of Your Word. Amen.