U.S. markets were mixed this morning, with the S&P 500 down 2 points to 1,984 and the Nasdaq dropping 8 points to 4,773, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15 points to 16,792.
The August trade balance came in with a deficit of $48.3 billion, higher than the Briefing.com’s estimate of $44.5 billion. This was an increase of 15.6 percent from the previous month and was mostly due to a surge in the deficit with China. Exports to China dropped $3.7 billion and mostly reflected a decrease in industrial supplies and materials. So far, shale oil is still providing a tail wind in the trade numbers, so Saudi Arabia’s attempts to kill this market haven’t worked — yet. But the big leap in the trade deficit fueled growing fears that the strength of the dollar will have a negative impact on the U.S. economy.
Asian markets closed higher, although larger gains throughout the day were trimmed near the close. European markets were moving higher with French and German automakers gaining.
The Chinese yuan surpassed the Japanese yen as the fourth most-used global currency in August. The surprise devaluation created a situation where the currency was traded heavily during the month.
Alibaba stock dipped in premarket trading, but reversed course and moved higher this morning by 30 cents to $64.24 after the American Apparel & Footwear Association suggested that its online shopping platform Taobao get added back to the U.S. government’s list of “Notorious Markets” for counterfeit products. Taobao is known for selling fake merchandise. The Web site was removed from the government list in 2012 ahead of Alibaba’s initial public offering and, according to the AAFA, has not been willing to make serious reforms.
A new survey from BloomReach said that four in 10 people start their retail shopping search at Amazon. Roughly 44 percent of shoppers go directly to Amazon when buying or researching a product online. That’s up from a Forrester Research study from 2012 that pegged that number at 30 percent. It’s worth noting these are two different companies and two different methodologies of research. While discouraging for online retailers, BloomReach also hires itself out to help online retailers, so the results could be reviewed as not entirely objective. For its part, Amazon stock rose $3.15 to $546.78.
