NY Open: Struggling equities in positive territory

Wall Street is in positive territory in early trading, but that was the case yesterday before prices cratered. General Electric (GE: NYSE) used to advertise “We bring good things to life.” It’s a good thing that the slogan is no longer in use as it would upset investors. GE announced a $22.8 billion loss for the quarter and then cut the dividend to just one cent.

Fortunately, Pfizer posted a $45 jump in Q3 profit, and Coca Cola’s quarterly sales beat forecasts. Now, if Facebook (FB: Nasdaq) can beat expectations after the close, it will go a long way in alleviating negative equity market sentiment.

FX markets can’t get any traction.  EUR, JPY, and GBP are unchanged as of 14:15 GMT after recovering from earlier losses. Better than expected German inflation data (Oct CPI 0.2% m/m vs forecast 0.1%) eased the pain from weaker than forecast Eurozone GDP,  Business Climate and Services Sentiment. USDJPY eased off its 112.97 peak on a dip in 10-year US Treasury yields from 3.119% to 3.10%.  Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz and Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins appear before the House of Commons Finance Committee, today.  It should be a repeat of last week’s Monetary Policy Press Conference.

Oil prices crashed through support at $67.90/barrel and touched $65.23/b, continuing the overnight drop. That break shifts the focus to further losses to $63.60/b. News of Russian and Saudi Arabian plans to increase production to offset some of the Iranian crude losses fuelled the move. It also looks like traders are anticipating that the American Petroleum Institute (API) will report another increase in US crude inventories at the end of the New York session.