May Day! May Day!
May 1, 2023
The May Day holiday observed in many countries around the world each first of May commemorates the international workers’ movement that has fought for labor rights. Most of Europe is closed. So are markets in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea, and India.
May day May day is also the recognized radio signal for distress. Today’s top financial market story is the receivership of First Republic Bank headquartered in San Francisco and representing the largest U.S. bank failure since Washington Mutual collapsed in September 2008. The banks assets and insured deposits were seized by the FDIC and sold to JP Morgan Chase. The bank’s share price had collapsed from $147 as recently as February 2nd to $3.50 last Friday following the shocking revelation of a run totaling some $100 billion on the bank’s deposit base.
The dollar, by contrast, has moved only little this Monday, rising 0.3% against the yen and sterling, 0.2% versus the loonie and 0.1% vis-a-vis the euro, but also falling 0.3% relative to the Australian dollar, 0.2% against the Swiss franc and Mexican peso and 0.1% versus the kiwi. The euro at $1.1004 is close to last week’s one-year high. U.S. stock futures are flat, while the 10-year Treasury yield has risen 3 basis points.
In this hour of banking system strain, crypto has failed another test of its mettle in times of uncertainty. The price of Bitcoin tokens is down 2.5%. Prices for WTI oil and Comex gold are 2.0% and 0.3% lower.
Monday has been a very light day from a data release standpoint.
Japanese consumer confidence improved half an index point to a 15-month high in April but remained weak at 35.4. A 29-month low of 28.6 had been touched last November.
China’s NBS-compiled manufacturing and non-manufacturing purchasing managers indices fell in April to 4- and 3-month lows of 49.2 and 54.4.
Japan’s manufacturing purchasing managers index for April was left unrevised from the preliminary estimate of 49.2, which represents a six-month high and the sixth consecutive month of being below the 50-threshold that separates improving activity from a contractionary trend.
Australia’s manufacturing PMI for April was revised 0.1 point lower to a 35-month low of 48.0. That point represents the second straight month with a sub-50 reading.
India’s manufacturing PMI rose 0.8 points to a 4-month high of 57.2.
Denmark’s manufacturing PMI printed at a 3-month high of 44.2 in April and five points above February’s 7-month low of 39.2.
Consumer price inflation subsided to a one-year low of just 2.8% in Vietnam last month.
The U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers survey and construction spending data will be released later today.
Copyright 2023, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: First Republic Bank failure, Japanese consumer confidence and manufacturing PMI
ShareThis
