1. Travel ban fallout: Global markets are trading lower after a weekend of confusion and protests over an executive order issued by President Trump that bans travel from seven Muslim-majority nations.
The dollar weakened and U.S. stock futures were trading lower ahead of the open.
“The U.S. travel clampdown dominated the weekend’s news and resulted in the dollar being marked down by about 0.5% at the start of Asian trading,” noted Kit Juckes, a strategist at Societe Generale.
Travel stocks were also under pressure early Monday. International Airlines Group, the owner of British Airways and Iberia, was down 1.7%, while Air France-KLM shed 2%. Hotel operator Accor dropped 1.6%.
The controversial order has been publicly criticized by top corporate leaders — especially those from the tech industry.
Starbucks said it would hire 10,000 refugees over five years in response to the ban. General Electric and JPMorgan Chase have also expressed concerns about how the order will affect their employees.
2. Volkswagen is back: Volkswagen has toppled Toyota as the world’s top-selling automaker, despite the massive fallout from its emission rigging scandal.
Toyota said Monday it sold 10.2 million vehicles worldwide in 2016, falling short of the 10.3 million vehicles Volkswagen delivered.
3. Stock market movers — Vodafone, Apple: Vodafone is trading more than 3% higher in London after talks about merging its India business with local rival Idea Cellular.
Apple shares took a hit premarket trading ahead its results report on Tuesday.
4. Earnings and economics: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis will release December personal income and spending data at 8:30 a.m. ET. December pending home sales figures will follow at 10:00 a.m. ET.
Germany will publish its inflation data at 10 a.m. ET.
5. Global market overview: European markets were down in early trading. Asian markets ended the session mixed.
Markets in China are closed for most of the week because of Chinese New Year.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit the 20,000 point milestone last week, closing at 20,094 points on Friday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended the week flat.
6. Coming this week:
Monday – U.S. pending home sales index
Tuesday – Fed meeting begins; Last day for Obamacare open enrollment; Apple, Nintendo, Aetna, ExxonMobil, Under Armour and UPS report earnings
Wednesday – Facebook earnings; Auto sales report
Thursday – Amazon and Chipotle earnings
Friday – U.S. jobs report