New highs for US stocks; Bitcoin drops to $10k

3:27 PM 15 July 2019

Summary:

  • Wall St. rises to now ATH

  • Citi beats on earnings

  • Chinese growth slows to near 30-year low

  • Bitcoin tumbles as investors digest trump’ words

 

Equities have made a pretty solid start to the week despite the drop in Chinese GDP that was announced overnight with the S&P500 moving above the 3020 level to post another fresh all-time high. The economic calendar was pretty light today with the only data out of note since the Chinese figures being the Empire Fed manufacturing index. This reading for July came in above forecasts, with a print of +4.3 in excess of the 2.0 consensus forecast and marking a pleasing bounce back from the -8.6 seen last time out. The contraction in manufacturing readings in recent months has caused some concern but the recovery in the latest New York state figures is a welcome recovery after the June reading showed the lowest level since October 2016. 

Start investing today or test a free demo

Open real account TRY DEMO Download mobile app Download mobile app
 

Citigroup has kicked off earnings season in earnest this lunchtime with the firm the first major bank to report their Q2 results. On the whole there’s quite a lot to like about the update with the figures beating the street on both the top and bottom line. If Citi’s performance serves as a harbinger of things to come, then the pretty pessimistic forecasts going into this set of corporate earnings could be overly negative and allow for several upside surprises. The bank earned an adjusted $1.83 per share on revenues of $18.8B, against $1.63 and $18.5B for the same period last year. According to Bloomberg, analysts on average expected Citi to post $1.80 per share on $18.5B revenue. The increase in revenue has been attributed in part to a $350M pre-tax gain on its investment in electronic trading platform Tradeweb, which recently went public. The stock trades marginally higher on the European close. 

 

The pace of growth in the world’s second largest economy has slowed to its lowest level in almost 30 years with Chinese GDP for the second quarter falling to +6.2% year-on-year. This is the lowest reading since 1992 and with most of the weakness coming from exports it appears that the ongoing trade tensions with the US are taking their toll. While the slow down is clearly not good news, it had been widely expected and as such came as no surprise. Traders seemingly focused more on the latest industrial production and retail sales figures which were released simultaneously with the GDP data and both beat forecasts. There was little by the way of an immediate adverse market reaction as Chinese stock benchmarks actually ended the session in the green with the CSI 300 index closing up by 0.9%. 

 

Major cryptocurrencies saw substantial declines over the past weekend as investors were digesting harsh words of US President Donald Trump regarding digital coins. Let us recall that he underlined that he was not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies suggesting they were not money and were based on thin air. After the gloomy weekend, the declines have been extended into the new week with Bitcoin trading lower by as much as 14%. The market briefly dipped to the $10,000 mark before buyers stepped in and provided support and this big round psychological figure could be worth keeping an eye on going forward.

 

Share:
Back
Xtb logo

Join over 935 000 XTB Group Clients from around the world

The financial instruments we offer, especially CFDs, can be highly risky. Fractional Shares (FS) is an acquired from XTB fiduciary right to fractional parts of stocks and ETFs. FS are not a separate financial instrument. The limited corporate rights are associated with FS.
This page was not created for investors residing in Brazil. This brokerage is not authorized by the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) or the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB). The content of this page should not be characterized as an investment offer in Brazil or for investors residing in that country.
Losses can exceed deposits

We use cookies

By clicking “Accept All”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.

This group contains cookies that are necessary for our websites to work. They take part in functionalities like language preferences, traffic distribution or keeping user session. They cannot be disabled.

Cookie name
Description
SERVERID
userBranchSymbol cc 2 March 2024
test_cookie cc 25 January 2024
adobe_unique_id cc 1 March 2025
__hssc cc 8 September 2022
SESSID cc 2 March 2024
__cf_bm cc 8 September 2022
intercom-id-iojaybix cc 26 November 2024
intercom-session-iojaybix cc 8 March 2024

We use tools that let us analyze the usage of our page. Such data lets us improve the user experience of our web service.

Cookie name
Description
_gid cc 9 September 2022
_gat_UA-98728395-1 cc 8 September 2022
_gat_UA-121192761-1 cc 8 September 2022
_gcl_au cc 30 May 2024
_ga_CBPL72L2EC cc 1 March 2026
_ga cc 1 March 2026
__hstc cc 7 March 2023
__hssrc

This group of cookies is used to show you ads of topics that you are interested in. It also lets us monitor our marketing activities, it helps to measure the performance of our ads.

Cookie name
Description
MUID cc 26 March 2025
_omappvp cc 11 February 2035
_omappvs cc 1 March 2024
_uetsid cc 2 March 2024
_uetvid cc 26 March 2025
_fbp cc 30 May 2024
fr cc 7 December 2022
_ttp cc 26 March 2025
_tt_enable_cookie cc 26 March 2025
_ttp cc 26 March 2025
hubspotutk cc 7 March 2023

Cookies from this group store your preferences you gave while using the site, so that they will already be here when you visit the page after some time.

Cookie name
Description

This page uses cookies. Cookies are files stored in your browser and are used by most websites to help personalise your web experience. For more information see our Privacy Policy You can manage cookies by clicking "Settings". If you agree to our use of cookies, click "Accept all".

Change region and language
Country of residence
Language