As the North American session begins, the NZD is the strongest and the CAD is the weakest. The USD is mostly lower with only gains vs the CAD and near unchanged vs the EUR.
The chatter on Russia/Ukraine continued with reports Russia did not withdraw troops but added troops from the border. Also, there were reports that Ukraine fired mortar and grenades at a Russian separatists region. Fear is Russia will manufacture a pretext for an invasion. That news led to a run into the safety of the USD, but the dollar rise stalled and reversed lower
Australian employment statistics were a bit better than expectations as the economy fared well through the omicron spike. Both the AUD and NZD moved lower on the reported Ukraine strike, but reversed back higher (lower USD) soon after and trades at new highs into the NA session.
The US stocks are marginally lower in pre-market trading but off the lows in overnight trading. European stocks are mixed
US yields are lower.
The weekly US initial jobless claims will be released at the bottom of the hour along with the Philly Fed manufacturing index and building permits and housing starts. In Canada the ADP nonfarm employment change will be released at 8:30 AM. Feds Bullard is expected to speak at 11 AM ET. His hawkish views on policy are already well-known.
A look around the markets are showing:
- Spot gold is trading up $17 or 0.91% of $1886.20
- Spot silver is trading up five cents or 0.26% at $23.63
- Crude oil for March delivery is trading at $92.17 that is down -1.58% from the settlement price
- Bitcoin is down $922.48 at $43,282
In the premarket for US stocks:
- Dow is down around 29 points after yesterday's -54.57 point decline
- S&P index is down -16 points after yesterday's 3.94 point rise
- NASDAQ index is down 63 points after yesterday's -15.66 point decline
The European equity markets, the major indices are trading mixed:
- German DAX +0.11%
- France's CAC +0.35%
- UK's FTSE 100 -0.4%
- Spain's Ibex unchanged
- Italy's FTSE MIB unchanged
In the US debt market, yields are lower with five, 10, and 30 year yields are down around four basis points.
The European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are also lower with Italian yields down the most that -5.4 basis points
