- JOLTs October job openings 8.733M vs 9.300M estimate. Lowest level since March 2021.
- US November ISM services 52.7 vs 52.0 expected
- New US visa restrictions target West Bank violence and instability
- German DAX index rallies to an all-time high
- ECB's Vujcic: My baseline is for no more rate hikes and data dependent decisions
- US S&P Global November global final services PMI 50.8 vs 50.8 prelim
- Russia's Novak: We will tighten restrictions on oil and fuel supplies as early as Dec
Markets:
- S&P 500 down 0.1%
- WTI Crude down 72-cents to $72.32
- US 10-year yields down 11 bps to 4.18%
- Gold down $11 to $2018
- JPY and USD lead, AUD lags
Markets weren't entirely in synch today for the first time in awhile. Treasury yields continued to fall and normally that means a softer US dollar and higher equities but the opposite was the case today. Fundamentally, the JOLTS report provided some good news for the inflation-fighters at the Fed while the ISM services index was neutral.
It's not clear why bonds didn't seep into equities but clues came from the RBA and ECB earlier, both which were more-dovish than expected. That led to sharp declines in sovereign yields in Europe and Australia that have some thinking that central banks are already behind the cutting curve. Falling oil prices added to the sense of a decline in inflation and input prices in the S&P Global PMI fell to the lowest in more than three years.
Gold continued to retrace while bitcoin continued to soar, breaking higher to $44,000 at the highs. It's risen more than 15% in a week as enthusiasm continues to build about an ETF approval.
The euro fell for a fifth day, dropping below 1.0800 despite a brief bounce after the JOLTS numbers. Much of the selling came in New York and it was a similar story for the pound.
