Five Things World Business Will be Talking About Today

(Bloomberg) 

Metals soar, Alibaba reports, and it’s jobs day in Australia. Here are some of the things people in markets are talking about.

Turn Up the Base

An index of primary metals hit its highest level since November 2014 on Wednesday, with zinc rising above $3,000 per metric ton. As such, materials stocks were the best-performing group globally on the day, and the Aussie dollar was the best-performing G-10 currency. That’s bad news for hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, who’s been betting against metals stocks and predicting a slowdown in Chinese growth. He’s not alone: a bevy of strategists think this is as good as it gets for iron ore.

Alibaba Earnings

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose market capitalization is approaching that of Amazon.com, is slated to report its quarterly earnings on Thursday. As was the case with Tencent, which released stellar results on Wednesday, investors will be looking to see how Alibaba’s riskier ventures (including an $8-billion bid to revamp old-school shopping) have fared. S&P/ASX 200 and Nikkei 225 futures are mixed ahead of the open, with the former trading slightly to the upside and the latter down modestly.

Coming Up…

It’s jobs day in Australia, the land of kangaroos and volatile monthly employment fluctuations. Economists are calling for job growth of 20,000 in July with the unemployment rate staying put at 5.6 percent. Wage growth data released Wednesday showed pay rising at a record-low annual pace, much to the chagrin of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Other releases due out Thursday include Japan’s trade balance for July, Singapore’s non-oil export figures, and second-quarter growth in the Philippines.

Nafta Talks

Officials from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico began talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in Washington on Wednesday. Depending on which side you talk to, the deal is either poised to be modernized or get a complete makeover. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that Nafta has been a failure for “countless Americans” and that the world’s largest economy will be pushing for major changes. Lighthizer’s remarks were in stark contrast to those made by his counterparts from Canada and Mexico, who focused on the benefits for all parties involved. So far, however, U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions on trade have not lived up to his protectionist rhetoric. Heading into the talks, Mexican assets are on a tear — and haven’t been doing this well since Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Lowflation in Focus

The U.S. dollar and Treasury yields slumped on the news that U.S. President Donald Trump was ending his advisory business councils amid a mass exodus of executives. Both extended their retreats after the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July meeting showed many officials were concerned that inflation would remain lower for longer. U.S. stocks rose slightly on Wednesday. West Texas Intermediate fell more than 1.5 percent to its lowest level in over three weeks as data from the Energy Information Administration showed a rise in U.S. crude production.