It's Fed day, a surprise Democrat victory in Alabama, and the U.K. is losing workers
Hike day
Unless
almost every economist surveyed by Bloomberg and practically all U.S.
traders have got this one wrong, the Federal Reserve will announce a rate increase at 2 p.m.
Eastern Time today. The key piece of data that might move markets is
the updated dot plot, which the U.S. central bank uses to signal its
outlook for the path of interest rates in the coming years. The decision
will be followed at 2:30 with Janet Yellen’s last scheduled press conference as Fed chair. The decision kicks off a busy 24 hours
for monetary observers, with the Swiss National Bank, Norges Bank, Bank
of England, and the European Central Bank all due to announce decisions
tomorrow morning.
Alabama vote
Democrat Doug Jones won the race
for the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, defeating Republican Roy Moore in a
surprise victory in a state that has not returned a Democrat since the
early 1990s. Moore’s loss will further trim the GOP Senate majority to 51-49
next year, exerting further pressure on Congress to pass its tax
overhaul before Jones takes his seat. While it’s too early to tell
whether the Alabama democrat’s victory signals a shift in voter
sentiment away from Trump, it’s likely to make Republicans nervous ahead
of next year’s midterm elections.
Losing workers
Unemployment in the U.K. remained at 4.3 percent in the three months to October, as people left the workforce, pushing down both the number of people in work
and those unemployed. At 2.3 percent, wage growth remained well below
the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, in parliament, Prime Minister Theresa
May’s flagship Brexit bill faces a seventh day of scrutiny and a vote
that the government might lose due to concerns expressed by pro-European Conservative party members.
Markets wait
Overnight,
the MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.3 percent, while Japan’s Topix
index closed 0.2 percent lower as trading remained quiet ahead of
today’s Fed decision. It’s the same story in Europe with the Stoxx 600
Index 0.1 percent lower at 5:50 a.m. as investors await a raft of European central-bank decisions. S&P 500 futures were flat, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 2.417 percent, and gold was telling us nothing.
Aramco
Saudi
Arabian Oil Co. is looking for banks to pitch for roles as bookrunners
and coordinators of its mega-IPO, with the aim of appointing a group of
lenders by early next year,
according to people familiar with the matter. The news comes as shares
of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. for Distribution PJSC, the fuel retailing
unit of Abu Dhabi’s oil giant Adnoc, soared as much as 16 percent
on their trading debut. Also in Saudi Arabia, authorities are said to
be setting up an organization to deal with the assets relinquished by
detainees in a recent crackdown, with the potential to recover as much
as $100 billion from the settlement deals.