MTS Help Center

U.S. government debt prices were higher Thursday morning as investors seemingly paused for breath after a rally on Wall Street ended a three-day sell-off led by the tech industry.

At around 1:45 a.m. ET, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was lower at 0.6935% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was down at 1.4459%. Yields move inversely to prices.

Investor focus Thursday will be on key jobless claims data, expected at 8:30 a.m. ET. Initial jobless claims for the week ended Sept. 5 are expected to hit 846,000, according to a Reuters poll, having beaten expectations to come in at 881,000 last week as the U.S. labor market continues to show signs of healing.

· ByteDance is talking with the U.S. government about ways to avoid a full sale of TikTok

ByteDance is speaking with the U.S. government about possible solutions that may allow it to retain some ownership of the U.S. operations of TikTok, while satisfying regulators in both China and the U.S. Those possibilities include handing over operational control of TikTok data to a U.S. tech company, while potentially still holding on to some ownership of assets, a person familiar with the process told CNBC.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported Wednesday that ByteDance was working with the U.S. government on ways to avoid a full sale. The discussions have been taking place for months, the Journal reported, and the situation remains remains fluid. It’s still unclear if the Trump administration will be willing to go along with such a solution.

· Euro grinds higher as traders look to ECB for direction

The euro edged higher on Thursday as traders braced for a European Central Bank meeting to gauge policymakers’ views on the common currency’s recent appreciation and its impact on inflation.

Sterling steadied above a six-week low but could lose more ground due to growing concern that Britain and the European Union will fail to agree a trade deal.

While markets expect the ECB to keep policy steady, investors will closely watch President Christine Lagarde’s comments on how the euro’s rise to a two-year high this month affects the outlook for inflation and economic growth.

The euro bought $1.1821, holding onto a 0.3% gain from the previous session.

The British pound traded at $1.2993, recovering slightly from a dip to a six-week low of $1.2839 on Wednesday.

However, traders may be reluctant to buy the common currency further before the ECB meeting due to earlier media reports that officials are growing uncomfortable with the euro’s almost 6% appreciation against the dollar from its June low.

The ECB’s views are also in the spotlight after euro-zone consumer prices turned negative in August for the first time since 2016, and the U.S. Federal Reserve switched to focusing on average inflation.

“It’s possible that the ECB could try to out-dove the Fed if the euro appreciation goes too far, but whether that will be done via shifting to average inflation targeting or other means is hard to say,” Aidan Yao, senior emerging Asia economist at AXA Investment Managers in Hong Kong, told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.

With no major economic data scheduled during Asian trading, market moves could be subdued as investors wait for potential ECB catalysts.

Traders in the dollar are closely watching global equities because a rebound in U.S. tech shares from a rapid sell-off boosted Asian stocks, suggesting an improvement in risk appetite.

The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies was steady at 93.172.

· ECB to take aim at strong euro with hints of more stimulus

The European Central Bank is all but certain to keep policy unchanged on Thursday but with the economic recovery losing momentum and a strong euro dampening already-anaemic inflation expectations, it may set the stage for more stimulus later.

Having pulled out the stops this spring to halt a historic economic decline across the 19-country currency bloc, the ECB has time to let governments implement their own countermeasures and for its own ultra-easy policy to seep into the real economy.

But hurdles to the rebound from a 12% output drop in the second quarter are proving bigger than expected, and economists say the ECB will eventually be forced into taking more action, possibly as soon as December.

· Emergency Brexit talks as EU explores UK plan to break divorce treaty

Britain and the European Union will hold emergency talks on Thursday over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to undercut parts of the Brexit divorce treaty, a step Brussels has warned could scupper any chance of a trade deal.

After Britain explicitly stated that it would act outside international law by breaching the divorce treaty, EU negotiators are trying to gauge how to deal with London.

Britain signed the treaty and formally exited the EU in January, but remains within the single market until the end of this year under a status quo agreement.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic will travel to London to meet British counterpart Michael Gove for the emergency talks alongside scheduled trade talks between chief negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost.

· EU may take legal action against UK over new Brexit law: sources

The European Union could take legal action under its divorce treaty with Britain if emergency talks on Thursday do not reassure Brussels sufficiently that a proposed new British law will not break previously agreed commitments.

· China auto sales in August rise 11.6%, fifth month of gain

China’s auto sales in August rose 11.6% from a year earlier, the fifth consecutive month of gain, as the world’s biggest vehicle market comes off lows hit during the coronavirus lockdown.

Sales rose to 2.19 million vehicles last month, showed data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Overall sales are still down 9.7% for the first eight months of the year at 14.55 million vehicles.

New energy vehicle (NEV) sales in China grew 25.8% on year to 109,000 units in August, a promising sign for global automakers that have invested heavily in electric vehicles in the market.

CAAM expects NEV sales of 1.1 million vehicles this year, down around 11% from last year. NEVs include battery-powered electric, plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Sales of trucks and other commercial vehicles, which constitute around a quarter of the market, surged 41.6%, driven by government investment in infrastructure and as buyers upgraded to new vehicles to comply with tough emissions rules.

· Japan's rebounding July machinery orders tempered by fragile business outlook

Japan’s machinery orders rebounded in July from a sharp fall in the previous month, a welcome relief for the coronavirus-stricken economy but the outlook for capital spending remained uncertain due to fragile global business conditions.

Corporate Japan is facing strains from steep declines in earnings, discouraging business investment as the economy grapples with its worst postwar slump.

Core machinery orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, grew 6.3% in July after a 7.6% decline in June.

The rise was bigger than a 1.9% gain seen by economists in a Reuters poll.

· Oil prices steady but concerns remain over demand outlook

Oil prices were little changed on Thursday after falling earlier as the demand outlook remains clouded by rising coronavirus cases in many countries and as data showed U.S. crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose last week.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures dipped 4 cents, or 0.1%, to $38.01 a barrel at 0657 GMT, after climbing 3.5% on Wednesday.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures edge up 2 cents, or 0.05% to $40.81 a barrel, after rising 2.5% on Wednesday.

Reference: CNBC, Reuters