Headlines:
- Neck-breaking stuff, nickel hits $100,000
- LME suspends nickel trading for at least the remainder of the day
- Sentiment picks up as EU said to mull a large joint-bond sale to fund energy, defence
- BOJ Kuroda: Cost-push inflation without rising wages won't see inflation target sustained
- Germany January industrial production +2.7% vs +0.5% m/m expected
- Eurozone Q4 final GDP +0.5% vs +0.5% q/q second estimate
- US February NFIB small business optimism index 95.7 vs 97.1 prior
Markets:
- EUR leads, AUD and JPY lag on the day
- European equities higher; S&P 500 futures up 0.6%
- US 10-year yields up 9.7 bps to 1.845%
- Gold up 0.6% to $2,009
- WTI up 2.9% to $122.86
- Bitcoin up 3.0% to $38,950
The session started off with more defensive risk tones after the equities rout yesterday, with commodity prices soaring once again. Nickel went vertical in a push to $100,000 and that prompted the LME to suspend trading for at least until the end of today.
The likes of oil and gold are also continuing to push higher with WTI up nearly 3% and keeping above $120 while gold moved up to its highest since August 2020 to $2,020.
As European markets opened, a headline crossed suggesting the EU will step up spending on energy and defence amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis. That saw market sentiment turn on its head as equities rallied and bond yields jumped higher.
European indices opened with declines of over 1% before surging higher with the DAX now up 1.4% and CAC 40 up 1.6%.
US futures also flipped over losses of around 0.6% to be up around 0.8% currently.
In turn, the euro also jumped with EUR/USD moving up from 1.0870 to 1.0920 before keeping around 1.0900 now. USD/JPY held higher amid higher bond yields, up 0.3% to 115.65. The aussie is a bit of a laggard but at least is off earlier lows of 0.7268 against the dollar, bouncing off its 200-hour moving average as buyers stay in the game for now.
Russia-Ukraine headlines will continue to be of focus but expect the market to also slowly shift its attention to key central bank meetings that will be coming in the days and weeks ahead. The ECB will be the first in line this Thursday before the Fed comes along next week.
