Overnight Summary -- Mixed markets but China outperforms
The global equity markets are on the mixed side of things today as macro concerns continue to get in the way of buying conviction. The S&P futures are currently up two points at 2774.25, leaving them roughly 0.1% above fair value. They had been up as many as 13 points overnight, however, and lost steam as European markets lost steam.
Relatively speaking, Asian markets did much better than expected Friday in the wake of Wall Street's poor showing on Thursday and a weaker than expected Q3 GDP report from China. China's GDP was up 6.5% year-over-year, which was down from 6.7% in the second quarter and the slowest growth rate since the financial crisis. The soft GDP report corroborated concerns about the unfolding economic weakness in China, yet negative sentiment in the stock market was mitigated by news that Chinese regulators are aiming to get financial institutions to stem liquidity risk tied to buying stocks on margin. The Shanghai Composite jumped 2.6%.
The major EU bourses have been unable to hold a positive bias, having been undercut by disappointing earnings news from a batch of companies and festering concerns surrounding the budget stand-off between Italy and the EU. The 10-yr Italian note yield is up seven basis points to 3.75%, which is a four-year-high; meanwhile, the 10-yr German bund is down two basis points to 0.40% in a safe-haven trade.
