Wall Street was limping into another open, holding on to heavy losses as more bad news from China triggered a selling spree in oil and global equity markets. After data showing that Chinese foreign exchange reserves fell by a record amount in December, Beijing orchestrated a 0.5% devaluation in the beleaguered yuan, setting in motion a swoon in Chinese equities that was quickly exported overseas. In less than 15 minutes of trade, the Shanghai plummeted more than 7%, permeating Europe and the U.S. where Dow futures were already more than 300 points below fair value.
Commodities were also taking it on the chin with oil at a 12-year low of $32.10, copper nearly 3% lower and struggling to hold onto a $2 handle, and nickel and zinc nearly 4% in the red. Precious metals are higher on their safe-haven status with gold trading $11 higher, and silver up $0.12.
Thursday's major piece of economic data was eclipsed by events overseas with a 10,000 decline in initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan 2 to 277,000 barely registering a response from Wall Street. On Friday, the Labor Department will release the pivotal non-farm payroll report for December.
-Dow Jones Industrial down 2.13%
-S&P 500 futures down 2.14%
-Nasdaq 100 futures down 2.73%
SENTIMENT
Nikkei down 2.33%
Hang Seng down 3.09%
Shanghai Composite down 7.32%
FTSE-100 down 2.93%
DAX-30 down 3.51%
PRE-MARKET SECTOR WATCH
(-) Large cap tech: Lower
(-) Chip stocks: Lower
(-) Software stocks: Lower
(-) Hardware stocks: Lower
(-) Internet stocks: Lower
(-) Drug stocks: Lower
(-) Financial stocks: Lower
(-) Retail stocks: Lower
(-) Industrial stocks: Lower
(-) Airlines: Lower
(-) Autos: Lower
UPSIDE MOVERS:
(+) ZUMZ (+11.07%) Raised Q4 guidance
(+) QURE (+9.39%) Reported preliminary topline results from haemophilia B therapy clinical trial
(+) EZCH (+2.85%) Raging Capital Management, EZ Chip's largest shareholder, expressed support for merger with Mellanox ( MLNX )
DOWNSIDE MOVERS:
(-) CLBS (-29.24%) Plans to discontinue Phase 3 study of CLBS20 for metastatic melanoma
(-) EPZM (-20.62%) Priced a 13.33 million share offering at $9 per share, a 22% discount to Wednesday's closing price
(-) FINL (-16.76%) Miss Q3 revenue estimates and lowered Q4 guidance
(-) AKBA (-11.46%) Priced 7.25 million share offering at $9 per share
(-) ATML (-7.23%) Micochip Technology ( MCHP ) was reconsidering its $9.00 per share offer
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
