The USD is the strongest of the major currencies while the JPY is the weakest. The USD is been boosted by rising stocks after the earnings releases last night came in generally better-than-expected led by Meta. It stock is currently up over 15%. Apple, Amazon report after the close.
The JPY continue to move to the downside after Kuroda and BOJ reaffirmed its bond buying operations (See here and here). The USDJPY reached the 130.00 level for the first time in 20 years (everything is a first in the USDJPY in 20 years until it gets above the 2002 high near 135.00. The USDJPY is currently trading at 130.88.
The dollar index continues its run to the upside and has now seen the greenback rise 9.79% from the low to the high reached today in 2022. Go back to the January 6, 2021 low, the dollar index is up 16.5%. That should be headwind for US inflation but can also hurt international earnings going forward (see post here).
In other markets, the morning snapshot shows:
- Spot gold is trading near unchanged at $1885.42
- Spot silver is down -$0.22 or -0.94% at $23.05
- Crude oil is trading down -0.81 at $101.11
- Bitcoin is trading up $445 and $39,701.75
In the premarket for US stocks the major indices are trading higher help by Meta-shares after their user base increased to 1.96 billion up from 1.93 billion reported in February. The market was expecting 1.95 billion. EPS came in higher at $2.72 versus $2.56. Revenues came in lower than expected $27.9 billion versus $28.3 billion expected. Although the revenue growth was the slowest pace since the company went public in 2012, the market was more impressed by the gain in users. Much ado about nothing to me. However, the market was relieved from the average active users. The shares are up over 15% in premarket trading helping all the major indices rebound to the upside. Today Apple, Amazon, Intel, MasterCard, Southwest, McDonald's, and Comcast all report earnings.
- Dow industrial average is up 275 points after yesterday's 61.7 point rise
- S&P index up 60 points after yesterday's 8.76 point rise
- NASDAQ index up up 263 points after yesterday's -1.81 point decline
The Europe, the major indices are jumping on the upside bandwagon with solid gains at the start of the North American session
- German DAX, +1.61%
- France's CAC +1.6%
- UK FTSE +1.1%
- Spain's Ibex +0.7%
- Italy's FTSE MIB +1.4%
The US debt market, the yields are modestly higher after declines seen over the last few days
- 2 year yield is at 2.603%, up 1.0 basis point. The high yield reached 2.787% this week
- 5 year is at 2.834%, up 0.2 basis points. It's high yield in this cycle reached 3.048%
- 10 year 2.840%, up 0.6 basis points. It's high yield reached 2.981%
- 30 year 2.94%, unchanged. It's high yield reached 3.032%.
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are trading a bit higher.
