The USD is modestly lower
A day after the FOMC kept the course (and a slew of earnings from the likes of Apple and Facebook, et. all. Amazon is after the close today), the CAD is the strongest and the JPY is the weakest. The USD is modestly lower with a big day featuring the initial claims and the first look at GDP for the 1Q (advanced - estimate 6.6%). The pending home sales in the US will also be released today. The major currencies are mostly scrunched together with the exception of the JPY and CAD.
Looking at the ranges and changes, the EURUSD and GBPUSD have given up most of their earlier gains in the morning snapshot, but is also off lows in an up and down market today. The USDCAD is trading near its lows for the day as the CAD continues to move to the upside. Oil is up once again as investors anticipate more demand going forward on a reopening.
In other markets, as North American traders enter for the day:
- Spot gold is trading down $-4.12 or -0.23% at $1777.45
- Spot silver is up $0.16 or 0.65% $26.36
- WTI crude oil futures are up $1.14 or 1.79% at $65 even
- Bitcoin is trading down at $33 or -0.06% at $54,422
The premarket for US stocks are implying a higher open with Facebook/Apple leading the way. Earnings today include Caterpillar, Merck, McDonald's, Domino's, Bristol-Myers Squibb before the opening, and Amazon,Nio, Twitter, USS, Gilead after the close:
- Dow, +150 points
- S&P, +30 points
- Nasdaq +148 points
In the European equity markets, the major indices are mostly higher:
- German DAX, -0.4%
- France's CAC, +0.4%
- UK's FTSE, plus 0.5%
- Spain's Ibex, +0.5%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.1%
In the US debt market, yields are moving higher with the 10-year-old 5.34 basis points. The yield curve is also steeper with the 2 – 10 year spread up to 149.47 from 144.53 at the close yesterday:
In the European market, the benchmark 10 year yields are also moving higher with the meals up 1.9% to 4.2%:
