Picking up the Slack

Slack is a workplace messaging system, founded in 2014. It started trading on the NYSE today at $26.00/share, giving it a market cap of $15.5 billion.

It is a direct listing, described as a listing that “allows companies to list their shares directly and begin trading publicly on the NYSE, without issuing new shares via a traditional initial public offering, rather than the expensive, time consuming, bank-fee heavy IPO.

Slack may be big news to some, but for Wall Street, the prospect of two Fed rate cuts beginning next month is the real story. The Fed dropped “patience” in favour of “monitoring,” and noted the resurgence of “crosscurrents” weighing on domestic and global growth. Investors dropped all doubts about the risk of higher rates and bought stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 226 points in early trading while Nasdaq surged 1.17%.

Today’s US economic reports were mixed, second tier and not much of a trading factor. The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index was weaker than forecast while the current account deficit widened. Initial Jobless Claims were 6,000 lower than last week at, 216,000

USDCAD started the New York session as the worst performing currency pair since the New York close. It lost that ranking in early trading as it consolidates the 2.0% losses seen since Tuesday. USDCAD is weighed down by yesterdays better than expected inflation data, which significantly reduced the risks that the Bank of Canada would cut interest rates. WTI oil prices are also fueling the slide. They have climbed from $51.60 on Tuesday to $56,21.  USDCAD broke below key support at 1.3240 which opens the door to further losses to the 1.2990-1.3000 area.