Downside Bias

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Asian stocks had a mixed showing overnight with Japan down fractionally, and China’s Shanghai Composite rising by 0.8%.  Economic data in the region, though, was weak with Home Prices in China falling 5.0% y/y in January versus a decline of 5.3% in December. In Japan, Core Machinery Orders fell 1.2% on a m/m basis which was well below the forecast of an increase of 0.4%.

In Europe, stocks are trading down for a change as the STOXX 600 is down by over 0.5%. Contributing to the weakness there are both micro and macro factors. On the micro side, a weaker-than-expected earnings report from Philips, where sales came in weaker than expected and guidance was weak, has that stock trading down over 10%. On the macro side, UK inflation for January came in at 3%, which was above the consensus forecast of 2.8%. Core inflation, meanwhile, surged up to 3.7% from 3.2% in December.

Here, futures are modestly lower ahead of Building Permits and Housing Starts at 8:30 and FOMC Minutes at 2 PM. Treasury yields, crude oil, and gold are all higher on the day, reversing some of the losses from late last week while Bitcoin has bounced back over 2% to get back above $96K.

With a dozen eggs becoming as popular as a Furby circa Christmas 1998 and what seems like half a paycheck going to fund your daily bacon, egg, and cheese habit, egg prices have become a national nightmare. In last week’s CPI report, egg prices rose over 15% in January representing the largest monthly increase since June 2015. The chart of egg prices makes it look more like the Palantir (PLTR) of the CPI report than a boring old breakfast staple.

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