Biden makes a pitch for his infrastructure mega plan. Credit Suisse CEO faces angry ranks. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon sees a prolonged boom. Here's what people in markets are talking about today.
President Joe Biden promoted his $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan in a White House speech Wednesday, and described its passage as urgent to keep the U.S. competitive against China. Administration officials said the plan enjoys broad support from ordinary Americans and is overdue after decades of under-investment in roads, childcare and other programs. Republicans have balked at the proposed level of spending, the plan’s priorities and the tax increases called for. Here's our editorial board's take on the plan. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen unveiled a detailed sales pitch for the administration’s proposed corporate-tax code.
Asian stocks are poised for a mixed open Thursday after U.S. equities drifted higher, with investors mulling the latest insights into the Federal Reserve’s relaxed stance on inflation risks. Futures dipped in Japan and Hong Kong and climbed in Australia. The S&P 500 inched up to close at another record despite dwindling volume on U.S. exchanges. Rallies in technology giants including Apple helped push the Nasdaq 100 higher. The dollar rose and Treasury yields edged higher.
Credit Suisse CEO Thomas Gottstein is facing growing anger internally after the lender announced that it stands to lose as much as $4.7 billion amid the meltdown of Archegos Capital Management. Gottstein was grilled on the exposure and risk profile of the bank — and why it lost so much more than rivals in the debacle, according to people with knowledge of a call with the bank's managing directors. He is facing demands for answers from his board of directors and from the star traders, dealmakers and private bankers who are facing a double whammy. The shares they were just awarded for last year’s efforts are already down about 20% and the gains of a banner first quarter have been wiped out. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley made a luckier escape from the whole fiasco, selling $5 billion of Archegos-owned shares the day before a deluge of block trades sent shockwaves across markets.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s dovish message on an incomplete economic recovery won the day when officials met last month, with a record of the gathering showing a unanimous near-term policy outlook. Officials left their asset purchase program of $120 billion per month unchanged at the meeting and forecast they would keep the benchmark lending rate near zero until at least 2023 to help the U.S. economy heal from Covid-19. That was despite sharply upgrading projections for growth and employment that has had some investors betting the Fed will act sooner.
Jamie Dimon said he’s optimistic the pandemic will end with a U.S. economic rebound that could last at least two years. “I have little doubt that with excess savings, new stimulus savings, huge deficit spending, more QE, a new potential infrastructure bill, a successful vaccine and euphoria around the end of the pandemic, the U.S. economy will likely boom,” the JPMorgan CEO said Wednesday in his annual letter to shareholders. “This boom could easily run into 2023.” Dimon also pointed to U.S. consumers, who used stimulus checks to reduce debt to the lowest level in 40 years and stashed them in savings.
What We’ve Been Reading
This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours:
And finally, here's what Cormac's interested in today
The yen is on the comeback trail. After being on the ropes for the first quarter, the Japanese currency has come out punching in the second. It is back below the key 110 level against the dollar and keeping the euro from besting its mid-March high. A closely-watched gauge of momentum in the euro-yen — the slow stochastics indicator — is sitting clearly in overbought territory.
Strategists at Citigroup have noted an unwind of short yen positions is taking place and that would be a big relief for yen bulls. Speculative positions in the Japanese currency had reached the biggest net short in about two years, having been positive just a month ago, according to the latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. The yen is looking to rebound from a terrible first quarter, when it was the worst-performing of its Group-of-10 currency peers.
Cormac Mullen is a Cross-Asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo.
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