Futures Jump on Brexit Vote Cancellation
UK Prime Minister Theresa May all but admitted she does not have the votes to pass her Brexit deal through the British House of Commons by postponing the vote to a date yet to be decided. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 both jumped on the news, as it keeps markets from having to deal with the economic fallout of a no-deal Hard Brexit for another few weeks. The issue is, how will another few weeks help May convince parliamentarians to vote for her nearly universally despised Brexit program? The right hates it because according to them it keeps the UK in the European Union without any say as to EU policy. The left hates it because it technically takes the UK out of the EU and they want to stay in the EU. So it doesn’t look like a few more weeks are going to cut it, save some major blackmail attempt, or perhaps mass hypnotic mind control. If this is the news that is ultimately levitating US markets, well then we know how they’ll react if and when a no-deal Hard Brexit becomes the reality.
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SEE: Cannabis Stock News Daily Roundup December 7
Economic Data This Week
In quite a rare display, there will be no data about anything today, Monday, December 10. No numbers, except employment trends, and nobody follows that. But tomorrow, we have the Producer Price Index numbers coming out at 8:30. With the economy slowly coming to a halt, inflation should start to slow, according to mainstream economic thinking, which has proven many times to be wrong. But we’ll see. On Wednesday we have the all-important Consumer Price Index, which should put a more firm number in inflation data. Thursday sees jobless claims, which look to have bottomed out. An upside surprise would strengthen the theory that the US economy is indeed finally slowing after a 10-year expansion. Finally, on Friday, we have retail sales data.
Axovant Shares Fall Asleep on Sleep Trial Failure
Axovant (NASDAQ:AXON) shares are down 30% in premarket trading on disappointing data from a phase II trial of 34 patients for its REM sleep disorder drug for patients with Lewy body Dementia. After Alzeimer’s disease, Lewy body is the most common form of dementia. Axovant announced that it is ceasing development for the drug, called nelotanserin, leaving the company’s future in question.
Tesla Considers Buying Shuttered General Motors Plants
General Motors (NYSE:GM), amid rising interest rates leading to more difficult financing options for customers and ultimately leading to lower sales, coupled with an exacerbating trade war between the US and China that is itself leading to more trade barriers that are making it more difficult for GM to sell its cars both domestically and overseas in China, is planning to shut plants and layoff 15,000 workers. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) has said that it may be interested in swooping in and acquiring those assets. “It’s possible that we would be interested, if they were going to sell a plant or not use it, that we would take it over,” Musk said during an appearance on CBS “60 Minutes.”
Huawei CFO Bail Hearing Resumes Today
Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and daughter of the company’s founder, will have her bail hearing resumed today in Canada. The prosecution claims she is a flight risk, as she has considerable resources and can just duck into the Chinese embassy, though denying her bail would likely roil markets further in the fear that it would exacerbate the already-strained relationship between the United States and China. Meng was arrested at the request of the US and threatened with extradition on the charge that she did business with Iran, a country that the Trump Administration has decided that nobody is allowed to do business with, even if that somebody is not bound to US law, not being a US citizen, as is the case with Meng.