Global Markets:
- Asian Stock Markets : Nikkei up 0.88%, Shanghai Composite up 1.79%, Hang Seng up 1.05%, ASX up 0.71%
- Commodities : Gold at $1329.10 (+0.39%), Silver at $16.68 (+0.56%), WTI Oil at $75.08 (+0.50%), Brent Oil at $69.17 (+0.77%)
- Rates : US 10-year yield at 2.962, UK 10-year yield at 1.525, Germany 10-year yield at 0.630
News & Data:
- (AUD) Trimmed Mean CPI q/q 0.50% vs 0.50% expected
- (AUD) CPI q/q 0.40% vs 0.50% expected
- (USD) Existing Home Sales 5.60M vs 5.55M expected
- (EUR) Flash Services PMI 55 vs 54.8 expected
- (EUR) Flash Manufacturing PMI 56 vs 56.6 expected
- (EUR) German Flash Services PMI 54.1 vs 53.9 expected
- (EUR) German Flash Manufacturing PMI 58.1 vs 57.6 expected
- (EUR) French Flash Services PMI 57.4 vs 56.6 expected
- (EUR) French Flash Manufacturing PMI 53.4 vs 53.4 expected
- G-7 affirms it will never accept nuke-armed N. Korea: Japan
- EU, Mexico reach ‘agreement in principle’ on free-trade deal
Markets Update:
Asian markets traded higher today, although tailwinds continue to loom. The key threat is the 10 year US treasury yield, which is now in close proximity of the 3% threshold.
Investors seemed to have paused to breath and observe if the current rally of the dollar is indeed sustainable. Dollar remains near recent highs, although the gains have become much slower.
Chinese equities were in the green, driven largely by President Jingping’s comments at the Politburo meeting, signaling that he may fine tune policies to emphasize growth. Nikkei is at recent highs, as the yen is at the lowest against the dollar in 10 weeks.
Rising oil and commodities prices have also fuelled inflation concerns, supported by the fact that the tax-cuts may bring us to an economy near or at full employment, which could move the Fed to raise rates by more than 3 times this year.
Upcoming Events:
- 01:30 AM GMT – (AUD) CPI q/q
- 01:30 AM GMT – (AUD) Trimmed Mean CPI q/q
- 08:00 AM GMT – (EUR) German Ifo Business Climate
- 08:30 AM GMT – (GBP) Public Sector Net Borrowing
- 02:00 PM GMT – (USD) CB Consumer Confidence
- &more…
