Both the Greek Prime Minister and other European leaders are scrambling to find a way to keep Greece from exiting the euro as an emergency eurozone summit is taking place today. Meanwhile, the overseas action makes it look like a Greek exit from the eurozone and therefore the European Union would not send markets over the edge.
The Chinese, on the other hand, don't have much time to pay attention to what's going on with Greece, as they attempt to rein in their own market destabilization, with policymakers taking active measures to stop the stock market's slide (the Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.3% lower today and is off nearly 30% since mid-June).
The measures include limiting IPOs and a massive orchestrated buying of $19 billion in stocks by brokerages and fund managers backed by the state. Interestingly, retail investors represent 85% of China's trading. There has also been a massive trading halt in stocks, with more than a quarter of listed securities not trading.
And with all this going on, barely anyone is paying attention to the fact that the nuclear accord reached with Iran is nearly set to expire.
U.S. equity futures are trading modestly higher this morning and the dollar has also made modest gains. Crude futures are stabilizing after being cut down yesterday by $4.40 to $52.53/bbl.
Some earnings reports of note today include: MSC Industrial (MSM) and The Container Store (TCS).
On today's domestic economic calendar we have the May Trade Balance report at 8:30 a.m., with consensus at -$42.70billion.
At 4:30 p.m., we'll see the API weekly oil inventories.
Happy trading!
Bryan Ashenberg is the portfolio manager for Growth Seeker and the fundamental analyst for Trifecta Stocks. Test drive with a free trial.
