- US oil - New York will suspend its gasoline tax all for all of the second half of 2022
- The major indices snap 2-day losing streaks
- Canadian budget sees deficit of $52.8B this year vs $58.4B December projection
- EU says its ready to release 500m EUR for arms for Ukraine
- Canadian dollar at risk with federal budget set to be released
- Fed's Bostic: Fed's goal is to sustain growth as long as possible
- US consumer credit for February $41.82 billion versus $16.65 billion estimate
- Crude oil moves to a new session low and tests March 15 low in the process
- European equity close: Third day of selling and a close on the lows
- More from Bullard: Would like to see fed funds hit 3.50% in the second-half of 2023
- Macron at 53% vs Le Pen in election run-off in recent poll
- More from Fed's Bullard: Not clear how US will meet labor demand
- Fed's Bullard: Fed funds rate of around 3.5% needed to fight inflation
- US weekly initial jobless claims 166K vs 200K expected
- The EUR is the strongest and the AUD is the weakest as NA traders enter for the day
- ECB: Large number of members viewed current inflation developments call for urgent steps
- ForexLive European FX news wrap: Dollar steady, bond drop cools for now
The forex market saw the USD move higher today with most of the gains coming vs the commodity currencies. The USD rose 0.34% vs the CAD, 0.43% vs the AUD and 0.42% vs the NZD. The other changes vs the other currencies ranged from -0.06% (vs GBP) to up 0.16% vs the JPY.
Even with the gains vs the NZD, CAD and AUD, there was plenty of up and down price action vs those currencies in the North American session.
Fed's Bullard would like to the Fed funds rate up to 3.5% to fight inflation. Recall he was the lone dissenter at the last Fed meeting (although there were "many" that wanted to hike 50 bps but backed off because of Russia/Ukraine). Fed's Bostic and Evans did not veer off the path that the market is pricing in.
The initial jobless claims data moved to the lowest levels since at least 1968, when the US had half the population it does now. Bullard did say today that it is not clear how the US will meet labor demand? This type of number is indicative of that problem/dilemma.
A snapshot of the other markets at the close of day shows:
- Spot gold is trading up $5.92 or 0.31% at $1929.76
- Silver is trading up $0.15 or 0.63% at $24.58
- WTI crude oil is trading at $97.01 up $0.78 or 0.81%
- Bitcoin is trading up $380 and $43,576
In the US debt market today, yields are ending the day mixed with a steeper yield curve:
- 2 year 2.464%, -1.2 basis points
- five year 2.714%, up 3.0 basis points
- 10 year 2.663%, +6.2 basis points
- 30 year 2.684%, +5.5 basis points
A look at some of the major currency pairs shows:
- EURUSD: The EURUSD traded up, down, up and back down in trading today for the 2nd consecutive day. The highs stalled near the high from yesterday (high reached 1.0926). The low was just below the low from yesterday at 1.08638. The price is trading at 1.0876 near the low for the day. Traders will continue to waffle between the "goal posts" until the kick sales wide of the upper or lower goal post and runs.
- USDJPY. The USDJPY is another pair stuck nearly within the same up and down range from yesterday and awaits the next shove outside the range. For the pair, the low was just below the low from yesterday (low reached 123.457 vs 123.508 yesterday). The high was just below the high from yesterday at 124.03 (the high reached 123.995). The current price is at 123.95 - just below the higher extreme. Wait for the shove and hopeful momentum in the direction of the break.
- GBPUSD: The GBPUSD high moved above the 100 hour MA, but only briefly. The high price stalled near the high from yesterday at 1.3106. The low reached 1.3049 which was just above the lows from yesterday at 1.30472 and 1.3043. The current price trades between that 2-day range at 1.3075
