The USD is the strongest and the JPY is the weakest as the NA session begins. The USDJPY is the biggest mover with a gain of 1.55%. The other JPY crosses are running as well with gains of 0.87% to 1.55%. The NZDJPY move of 1.52%, CHFJPY at 1.38%, and GBPJPY at 1.32% are also sharply higher.
The Bank of Japan (BOJ)- with Ueda at the helm for his first meeting - maintained its monetary policy in April, keeping the short-term interest rate target at -0.1% and the 10-year JGB yield target. The bank made these decisions unanimously and did not change the policy settings. The BOJ has decided to conduct an examination of its monetary policy and tweaked its forward guidance, committing to additional easing steps if needed. The bank removed references to the COVID-19 pandemic and interest rate pledges from its forward guidance and will spend 1 to 1.5 years to review its monetary policy guidance. Later Ueda tried to walk back his comments saying the BOJ could change policy including a normalization during the review process saying "we are not starting the review with the aim of normalizing, but it's not zero chance we begin normalizing during the review period."
The BOJ's lack of major changes led to a breakout above the 135.00 mark, with the pair hitting a high of 136.18 in European trading. The pair now has the potential to reach the 200-day moving average at 137.00, followed by the March high of 137.91 (140.00 mark?).
U.S. stock futures are lower in pre-market trading after yesterday's sharp rise, as investors weighed corporate earnings, including Amazon's report of a slowdown in its cloud-computing division. Amazon shares dropped more than 2% in after-hours trading, while Snap and Pinterest also reported weaker-than-expected revenues.
At 8:30 AM ET, the US core PCE inflation gauge for March will be released (est 0.3% MoM and 4.5% YoY respectively - was 4.6%), along with the Employment cost index from Q1 (est 1.1% vs 1.0% in Q4 2022) as investors assess the impact of the central bank's aggressive monetary policy on price growth. Economic growth in the Eurozone was below projections for the first quarter, with GDP increasing only 0.1% and year-on-year growth slowing to 1.3%. German CPI came in at 7.2% versus 7.3% expected. The month-to-month was in 0.4% versus a 0.6% expected.
US yields are lower, but that is not helping the USD to the downside today. Oil prices are rebounding modestly
a snapshot of the market currently shows:
- Spot gold is down $5 a -0.25% at $1982.41
- Spot silver is down $0.15 or -0.61% at $24.78
- WTI crude oil is up $0.47 at $75.23
- Bitcoin is trading study at $29,260
In the premarket for US stocks, the major indices are trading lower after yesterday's huge moves to the upside:
- Dow Industrial Average -119 points after yesterday's 524.29 point rise
- S&P index -15.85 points after yesterday's 79.34 point rise
- NASDAQ index -56 points after yesterday's 287.89 point rise
In the European equity markets, the major indices are lower as well:
- German DAX -0.10%
- Frances CAC, -0.73%
- UK's FTSE 100 -0.06%
- Spain's Ibex -1.28%
In the US debt market, yields are lower:
- 2 year yield 4.066%, -3.1 basis points
- 5 year yield 3.558% -4.3 basis points
- 10 year yield 3.478% -4.9 basis points
- 30 year yield 3.705% -4.8 basis points
the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are sharply lower:
