Housing Market Stats and Announced German Porsche IPO Hoped to Mitigate Overall Gloomy Sentiment

The U.S. indices opened moderately lower today again, with S&P 500 losing 0.25% at the time of writing. Apparently investors demonstrate more nervousness about the Fed decision later in the week. The U.S. central bank is expected to raise interest rates by another 0.75 percentage points, though there are calls for a 100 bps move, after the August CPI figure showed that inflation has not peaked yet. In fact, all of the major averages are coming off their worst week since June, as well as their fourth weekly loss in five weeks, while the benchmark S&P 500 (SPX) just broke below a key support level watched by many investors.

The U.S. housing market index for September is scheduled for release at 10:00 a.m. EST. It is expected to decline slightly to 48 in September from 49 in August.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTCUSD) suddenly dropped near the lowest level since 2020 as cryptocurrencies experienced a massive wave of position liquidations over the past weekend. Meanwhile, South Korean prosecutors signalled that Do Kwon, the progenitor of a $60 billion Terra’s LUNA cryptocurrency collapse, is at risk of an Interpol red notice and trying to evade redress over a meltdown that roiled digital assets.

Corporatewise, Volkswagen (VOW.DE, VWAGY) is targeting a valuation of up to $75.1 billion for Porsche, in what will be Germany's second-largest IPO in history. Seeking some financing to help with its EV transition and investments in software, Volkswagen is taking legendary sports-car maker Porsche public. The deal is set to be Europe's largest listing in more than a decade, with a valuation of €70 billion – €75 billion, and proceeds from the sale totaling €18.1 billion to €19.5 billion. Trading is scheduled to begin Sept. 29 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

European markets are trading mostly lower today. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.11% as of 4:50 p.m. CET, British FTSE 100 declined 0.62% while the French CAC 40 Index fell 0.28%, however, German DAX is crawling higher by 0.36%. Unlike in the U.S., the Construction output in the Eurozone increased 1.5% YoY in July compared to a revised 1.3% rise in June. Elsewhere, Asian markets traded mostly lower earlier today. Thus, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 1.04%, China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.35%, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 eased by 0.3%, while India’s S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.6%. Foreign direct investment, FDI, into China rose 16.4% YoY to CNY 892.74 billion year-to-date, while People's Bank of China cut the borrowing cost of 14-day reverse repos from 2.25% to 2.15%. Hong Kong’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.1% in the three months ending August, compared to 4.3% in the prior three-month period.