Looks like a repeat of yesterday
As North American traders enter for the day, the GBP is the strongest and the NZD and AUD are battling it out for the weakest. If that looks familiar, it was the same leaders (on either extreme) from yesterday. The GBP was stronger after the Bank of England kept rates unchanged and were little more hawkish in comments (less dovish). The NZD and AUD continue to be influenced by the coronavirus. The confirmed deaths are up to 213 with infected over 10,000 now. It is month end today, so there may be some influences by the flows.
In Washington, it is likely that Pres. Trump will be acquitted of the impeachment charges as it seems Democrats does not have enough votes to call witnesses and extend the trial.
Looking at the ranges and changes, there is decent action on a relative basis in the USDCAD (50 pips). In Canada at 8:30 AM, it is their turn to release GDP data. AUDUSD and NZDUSD were briefly positive, but moved lower since. They nevertheless are off there lows for the day. The USDCHF also tried to rebound/retrace some of the declines from yesterday, but have since reversed and trades back near the lows from yesterday around 0.9680 area.
In other markets:
- Spot gold is trading up $6.45 or 0.40% at $1580.61
- WTI crude oil futures are trading up $0.21 or 0.40% at $52.36
In the premarket for US stocks, the NASDAQ index is being supported by blowout earnings from Amazon. The Dow and S&P are lower however:
- Dow, -161 points
- NASDAQ, +33 points
- S&P, -8 points
In the European equity markets the major indices are trading to the downside:
- German DAX, -0.4%
- France's CAC, -0.45%
- UK's FTSE 100, -0.7%
- Spain's Ibex, -0.55%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, -1.2%
In the US debt market yields are trading lower on flight to safety flows and concerns about the coronavirus:
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are also marginally lower with declines of 1 to 2 basis points.
