retail sales for june import prices for june industrial production and capacity utilization for june university of michigan midjuly consumer survey canada wholesale inventories for may earnings from blackrock citigroup unitedhealth wells fargo stock futures edged lower on friday as investors awaited further earnings reports from the biggest banks in the us which disappointed in the previous session worries over an economic slowdown and the federal reserves aggressive moves to tame rising prices have led wall street sharply lower this year while expectations the fed will boost rates by a full percentage point at the end of the month have been scaled back investors still expect the central bank to boost rates by at least 75 basis points to cool inflation that is running at a historic high recession risks have risen since the beginning of the year said mike bell global market strategist at jp morgan asset management if we dont get any signal of consumer retrenchment maybe its not as bad as people fear but if we do get that its a signal recession risk is materializing more than twothirds of us economic activity is tied to household spending recessions typically are accompanied by a pullback by consumers economists expect the commerce department to report that americans retail spending rose in june after declining in may when figures are released at 830 am et the university of michigan will publish an initial reading of its consumersentiment survey for july at 10 am et economists expect the report to show there was a slight improvement in consumers moods in july from junes final reading when it fell to its lowest point on record elsewhere chinas economy grew only 04 in the second quarter the countrys weakest growth rate in more than two years beijing has adopted a zerocovid policy that meets outbreaks of the virus with severe restrictions which has led many businesses to close stocks in shanghai finished fridays session down 16 while asian markets more broadly were mixed in europe the major indexes posted moderate opening gains eurusds rebound back above parity suggests investors are wary about selling the euro heavily ahead of next weeks ecb meeting unicredit research said investors are still prudent about dragging the pair much lower ahead of the ecb meeting next week now that most option barriers have probably been hit us data due friday including retail sales industrial production and the university of michigan consumer sentiment survey are likely to keep activity quite choppy and might even spark more profittaking at the end of a tough week usdjpy may extend its uptrend to 14000 and possibly as high as 14150 based on technical charts said uob on thursday the currency pair jumped by 108 and its daily moving average convergence divergence indicator has become positive for the first time since late june the rapid buildup of upward momentum suggests usdjpy could head higher to those levels uob added to sustain this momentum usdjpy shouldnt fall below support at its 21day exponential moving average which is currently at 13605 oil prices maintained modest gains in europe as concerns about supply tightness countered recession worries although fitch said crudes recent declines may be overdone it said economic growth should still be robust at around 3 this year and next meanwhile despite largescale strategic storage releases and demandside weakness in china the market has remained extremely tight fitch expects brent to average 105 a barrel this year and 100 a barrel in 2023 copper prices fell below 7000 a ton the first time since november 2020 while gold was also a touch lower as global growth fears continued to hit market sentiment rate hikes in europe and the us as well as chinese growth concerns are curtailing demand for metals said commonwealth bank of australia these global growth fears combined with hawkish us monetary policy is helping drive a surge in the dollar thats been particularly negative for industrial metals and oil benchmarks in recent weeks cba said amazoncom inc has started drastically reducing the number of items it sells under its own brands and the company has discussed the possibility of exiting the privatelabel business entirely to alleviate regulatory pressure according to people familiar with the matter amazons privatelabel business with 243000 products across 45 different house brands as of 2020 has been a source of controversy because it competes with other sellers on its platform the decision to scale back the house brands resulted partly from disappointing sales for many of the items the people said it also came as the retailandtechnology giant has faced criticism in recent years from lawmakers and others that it sometimes gives advantages to its own brands at the expense of products sold by other vendors on its site the securities and exchange commission is examining whether bettercom violated federal securities laws the online mortgage lender disclosed thursday celsius network llc has a roughly 12 billion hole in its balance sheet with the majority of its liabilities owed to the cryptocurrency lenders users according to a thursday filing by chief executive alex mashinsky of celsiuss 55 billion in total liabilities more than 47 billion is owed to celsiuss users according to the declaration mr mashinsky submitted to bankruptcy court activist investor elliott management corp has taken a big stake in pinterest inc according to people familiar with the matter as the oncehot socialmedia company grapples with a decline in users and other challenges elliott has told the company that it is the biggest investor in pinterest having built a stake of more than 9 in recent monthspartly in common stock one of the people said the activist has been in discussions with pinterest over the past several weeks it couldnt be learned what they have been discussing nft marketplace opensea to lay off 20 of employees opensea one of the largest marketplaces for nonfungible tokens said thursday it would cut a fifth of its staff as the crash in cryptocurrency prices continued to wreak havoc on digitalasset firms chief executive devin finzer said in an internal memo to employees that he shared on twitter that the company would provide severance and healthcare coverage into 2023 as well as accelerated equity vesting for those laid off us stock futures were little changed with another round of earnings reports from major financial institutions on tap sp 500 futures were up 01 and futures tied to the dow jones industrial average added 01 the contracts dont necessarily predict market moves after the markets open singaporechina recorded its weakest growth rate in more than two years a measure of the costs imposed on the worlds secondlargest economy by beijings zerotolerance approach to covid19 gross domestic product expanded at a 04 annual rate in the april to june period chinas national bureau of statistics said friday that was the worst performance since the first quarter of 2020 when the pandemic first erupted and the economy shrank 69 after the central chinese metropolis of wuhan became the first city in the world to lock down to stem the spread of covid19 economists polled by the wall street journal had forecast chinas economy to grow 09 chinas newhome prices fell further in june realestate investment kept sliding in first half beijingthe decline in chinas newhome prices widened in june as the embattled property sector continued to struggle to shrug off the impact of last years regulatory crackdown despite beijings supportive measures to counter plummeting home prices average newhome prices in 70 major cities fell 129 in june from a year earlier compared with mays 079 decrease according to wall street journal calculations based on data released friday by chinas national bureau of statistics chinas central bank kept its key policy rates unchanged on friday while injecting fresh liquidity into the financial market the peoples bank of china held the interest rate of the oneyear mediumterm lending facility steady at 285 and the sevenday reverse repurchase agreement rate unchanged at 21 according to a brief statement on its website colombo sri lankasri lanka president gotabaya rajapaksa officially resigned the countrys parliamentary speaker said on friday raising hopes the political turmoil around who is in charge of the financially distressed country will inch closer to being resolved in a brief statement to reporters the parliamentary speaker mahinda yapa abeywardena a rajapaksa ally who has served as a conduit for communications from the president in recent days said the resignation took effect thursday when mr rajapaksa sent his resignation letter via email after arriving in singapore