Markets Overview

  • ASX SPI 200 futures up 0.5% to 7,443.00
  • Dow Average up 0.4% to 36,218.29
  • Aussie down 0.6% to 0.7302 per US$
  • U.S. 10-year yield rose 1.5bps to 1.6301%
  • Australia 3-year bond yield rose 5bps to 1.02%
  • Australia 10-year bond yield rose 7bps to 1.83%
  • Gold spot down 0.6% to $1,851.92
  • Brent futures up 0.5% to $82.45/bbl

Economic Events

  • 10:30am: (AU) Oct. Westpac Leading Index MoM, prior -0.02%
  • 11am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1.5 Billion 1.25% 2032 Bonds
  • 11am: (AU) Bloomberg Nov. Australia Economic Survey
  • 11:30am: (AU) 3Q Wage Price Index QoQ, est. 0.6%, prior 0.4%
  • 11:30am: (AU) 3Q Wage Price Index YoY, est. 2.2%, prior 1.7%

Stocks climbed after the biggest jump in U.S. retail sales since March, with results from industry giants Walmart Inc. and Home Depot Inc. showing robust demand even as inflation squeezes purchasing power.
The strong retail figures alongside better-than-estimated factory output and homebuilder confidence helped lift equities, overshadowing comments from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard that the central bank should speed up its reduction of monetary stimulus to offset inflation. All major equity benchmarks advanced, with the S&P 500 extending its November rally. Treasuries fell.

Other News

TEL AVIV — It might look like pork, smell like pork, even taste like pork — just don’t call it pork.
The arrival of fake, plant-based meat expanded the culinary horizon for many observant Jews in recent years. Faux cheeseburgers were suddenly on the menu at kosher restaurants without breaking the ban on mixing dairy with meat. Chili cheese fries became an option.
Could Impossible Foods Inc.’s fake pork also get a kosher seal of approval?
Just the word “pork” was too much to stomach, said Rabbi Menachem Genack, chief executive of the world’s largest kosher certification group, OU Kosher. Its board voted early this year against the company’s kosher-certification request for Impossible Pork.
The prominence of OU Kosher, a division of the Orthodox Union, makes its rejection one that other kosher certifiers may find hard to ignore. The OU said it might itself revisit the decision in the future.
While many animals are considered not kosher, Jews have a particularly fraught relationship with pigs. The Torah prohibits Jews from eating pigs because they don’t chew their cud, which affects how the animal digests and eats. Some Jewish scholars have surmised the ban is due to the habits of the animal, which will eat practically anything. Other ancient cultures in the Near East refrained from pork for the same reason, historians say.
Chanie Apfelbaum, a New York kosher food blogger and cookbook author, said she had no problem eating Impossible cheeseburgers, but “I have a hard time getting past the idea of eating something that’s called ‘pork’ and is meant to taste like pork.”
The pork ban has long been a defining pillar for Jewish communities around the world, cementing social ties. The growing popularity of faux meats presents a challenge, said David Zvi Kalman, a scholar in residence and director of new media at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America in New York.
“This is possibly the most important decision for Judaism in the 21st century,” Mr. Kalman said of the OU’s decision on Impossible Pork.
Competitor Beyond Meat Inc. said it has yet to seek kosher certification for its Beyond Pork, which it said was created for the Chinese market and is available only in China so far.
“We’ll have to see how that’s going to play out,” said Chaim Fogleman, communications director at OK Kosher, another U.S.-based kosher certification group, which approved Beyond Meat’s other products. OK Kosher hasn’t been asked to certify Impossible Pork, it said.
Rabbi Genack of OU Kosher says he suspects that doubters might one day come around and allow faux pork to be certified as kosher. “It’s not a halachically based decision. . .We can review it again,” he said, using the Hebrew term to describe Jewish law.
Islam, too, prohibits pork eating. Impossible Foods said it also tried to get Impossible Pork certified as halal, or permissible, by the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, but it was rejected.