* Major U.S.averages turn negative: small caps underperform
* Energy weakest major S&P sector; tech sole gainer
* Euro STOXX 600 index ends up ~0.5%
* Dollar flat; gold, crude slip
* U.S.10-Year Treasury yield ~1.15%
Feb 11 – Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of
markets brought to you by Reuters reporters.You can share your
thoughts with us at [email protected]
GAMESTOP ASIDE, SHORT INTEREST WANES (1233 EST/1733 GMT)
GameStop and other stocks with heavy short positions
have taken center stage in recent weeks, as amateur investors
have targeted them to squeeze them and drive up their prices.
That said, the number of GameStop shares shorted has fallen
dramatically since last month.
And overall, short interest is falling.In the latest data,
as of Jan.29, short interest on the New York Stock Exchange
fell to 12.931 billion shares, compared with 13.716 billion
shares as of Jan.15.
On Nasdaq, short interest fell to 9.407
billion shares as of Jan.
29, compared with 10.019 billion
shares as of Jan.15.
NYSE short interest has fallen to a “historic low,”
according to EPFR.
The firm calculates that the current number
of total shares is the lowest since it started tracking monthly
short interest in September 2008.
EPFR also notes in a report that the percentage decline in
NYSE short interest was the biggest since the pandemic struck in
March.
The lack of short interest could hold the market back.As
EPFR says, “a lower volume of short interest means that there is
less fuel for a future market rally if short sellers are forced
to cover their short positions.”
(Lewis Krauskopf)
PAYMENT STOCKS SOAR WITH CRYPTO IN THE AIR (1107 EST/1607
GMT)
Shares of payment processing companies were some of the
biggest boosts for the S&P 500 on Thursday with investors
betting that cryptocurrencies could bring new business.
Ahead of its investor conference, which starts at 11:30 AM
EST (1630 GMT), Paypal is leading the charge with a
gain of around 5.0%.
Mastercard, up about 3%, was the next biggest boost
after it announced on Wednesday it was planning to offer support
for some cryptocurrencies on its network this year, joining a
string of big-ticket firms that have pledged similar support.
Visa is up around 2%.
“There’s just a huge appetite for anything crypto right
now,” said R.J.
Grant head of trading at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods
in New York.”There’s excitement in payment processing industry
about crypto becoming more mainstream.”
“The institutional appetite is very strong for companies
allowing the mainstreaming of digital assets,” said Grant whose
firm specializes in the financial sector.
While Grant said it was not clear how much an acceptance of
cryptocurrency would add to these companies top or bottom lines
he said: “I’m sure being an early mover would be positive for
business.I just don’t know how to quantify it.”
Also Bank of NY Mellon, up 2.0%, joined the rush by
top-tier financial services firms to bet on digital currencies
such as bitcoin on Thursday, saying it had formed a new unit to
help clients hold, transfer and issue digital assets.
(Sinéad Carew)
ART, VINTAGE CARS, EXPENSIVE WATCHES AND BITCOIN (1018
EST/1518 GMT)
What do they have in common?
Well, they are all assets Commerzbank Research doesn’t offer
regular comments on.
“Commerzbank Research does not consider it to be its
responsibility to comment on the price development of purely
speculative investments or to predict it”, analysts Ulrich
Leuchtmann and Thu Lan Nguyen wrote in a note of over 3,000
words dedicated to the crypto currency.
“We do not offer this service for other forms of speculative
investments such as works of art, vintage cars or expensive
watches”, they add.
The analysts believe that “as bitcoin lacks the function of
a store of value it cannot be used as money in the conventional
sense”.
Moreover, “there is considerable doubt whether bitcoin will
be broadly acceptable as a means of transaction medium- to
long-term”, they add.
The note comes as bitcoin just soared past the $48,000 bar
after Bank of NY Mellon said it had formed a new unit to help
clients hold, transfer and issue bitcoin and other crypto
currencies.Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also said
the firm could potentially accept bitcoin payments.
The frenzy surrounding the digital currency accelerated
recently when Elon Musk’s Tesla revealed it had bought $1.5
billion worth of the cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as
a form of payment for its cars.
(Julien Ponthus and Karin Strohecker)
GRIM JOBLESS CLAIMS DATA TURNS UP STIMULUS HEAT (1007
EST/1507 GMT)
Jobless claims data released on Thursday added urgency to
U.S.Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s appeal for a broad
national effort to help Americans get back to work and
emphasized the need for more stimulus from Washington.
The number of American workers filing first-time
applications for unemployment benefits inched lower
last week to 793,000 from the previous week’s upwardly-revised
812,000, according to the Labor Department.
The number was 36,000 above consensus, and supports Powell’s
acknowledgement on Wednesday that “improvement in labor market
conditions stalled” as new cases of COVID-19 surged and fresh
shutdowns were re-imposed to contain its spread.
To provide context, initial jobless claims have remained
above 665,000 – the worst reading from the darkest days of the
Great Recession – for almost one year.
That number is higher than the estimated 2019 population of
Portland, Oregon – 654,741 – according to the Census Bureau.
Ongoing claims, reported on a one-week lag,
edged down to 4.545 million.
The U.S.economy haemorrhaged 22.2 million jobs in
March-April 2020.
Of those, nearly 10 million have yet to
return, with lower-paying, customer-facing services jobs
suffering the cruellest hit.
But many analysts see brighter days ahead.
“With Covid cases and hospitalizations plummeting, the
economy is now starting to re-open, albeit very slowly and
patchily, but the direction of travel is clear,” writes Ian
Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
“The seasonal patterns suggest that claims likely dip only
slightly over the next few weeks,” Shepherdson adds.”But the
dominant force as the spring arrives will be the fading of Covid
and the reopening.”
Market participants chose to take the gloomy claims data as
a sign that the sense of urgency regarding the passage of
President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion fiscal aid package could
make the stimulus a reality sooner rather than later.
All three major U.S.stock indexes are slightly green, with
tech shares underpinning the Nasdaq.
(Stephen Culp).
