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Good morning. Lousy jobs data and spiking yields put a beating on stocks yesterday, with tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Amazon sinking the S&P 500. Those jitters sent Asian and European shares lower on Thursday.
Treasury yields are beginning to nudge higher, as I type, and that’s impacting U.S. futures. They point to another weak open ahead of more labor market data and a big speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell that could impact bond yields and currencies—which is to say, equities, too.
Let’s see what else is moving markets.
Markets update
Asia
- The major Asia indexes are having a rough go in afternoon trading, with the Hang Seng down 2.2%.
- Netflix is pouring massive resources into the lucrative India market to fend off challenges from Disney and Amazon Prime. The streaming giant plans to release 40 local productions in the coming year, the Financial Times reports.
- Households around the world have amassed $2.9 trillion—yes, trillion with a T—in excess savings, enough dry powder to fuel one heck of an economic recovery.
Europe
- The European bourses were a blur of red with the Stoxx Europe 600 down nearly 0.6% at the open.
- Italy is the second European country after Germany to enter the promising market for green bonds, looking to sell €7 billion worth of the specialized debt with a 2045 maturation date. Look for Spain and the U.K. to tap this same market in the coming months, analysts say.
- Shares in Germany’s Merck—Merck KGaA—were down 0.5% in the opening minutes of trade despite the biotech giant delivering blockbuster results and a rosy 2021 outlook, as the vaccines rollout has been great for business.
U.S.
- U.S. futures are down in volatile trade. That’s after the Nasdaq shed a further 2.7% on Wednesday. Tech stocks are having a rough week.
- Shares in Google fell 2.6% yesterday on news it will essentially upend its digital advertising cash cow by phasing out those ubiquitous tracking “cookies” designed to tailor ads for us.
- In this jumpy market, today’s jobless data could be a factor worth watching today. The forecast is for 750,000 new unemployment claims.
Elsewhere
- Gold is down, trading below $1,715/ounce. It hasn’t been much of a safe-haven in these tumultuous markets.
- The dollar is up.
- Crude is edging higher with Brent trading above $64/barrel.
- Bitcoin is proving to be a decent hedge against stocks this week, trading above $50,000 at 10 a.m. Rome time.
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Correction: Yesterday’s Bull Sheet contained a wildly inflated figure, which a few of you later pointed out to me. The post should have read that Cathie Woods of ARK Investment Management made a $95 million investment in Zoom Video Communications. I regret the error.
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Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow… Until then, there’s more news below.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's read
Blast off. Touch down. One of the most volatile stocks this week has been Rocket Companies (Ticker: RKT), the parent firm of Rocket Mortgage and Quicken Loans. The Reddit crowd sent its shares on a gravity-defying ride on Tuesday, to an all-time high, only to see it crash by nearly 33% yesterday. Fortune's Chris Morris has the story.
Oscar the grouch. Investor appetite for new shares ain't what it used to be. Case in point: Oscar Health, which counts Joshua Kushner, Jared's younger brother, as a co-founder, had a rough debut yesterday, falling 11%.
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Market candy
Quote of the day
We haven’t seen this scale of fiscal response before, and the market is struggling with how to process that.
That's Julia Coronado, founder and president of Macropolicy Perspectives. She is part of a growing chorus on Wall Street who believe the Biden Administration's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan could have big unintended consequences for the equities market.
