The USD is mostly lower
As North American traders enter for the day, the GBP is the strongest while the JPY is the weakest. The US/China telephone meeting on trade helped the risk on focus. The Republican national convention got started yesterday to a roaring start (literally for some). The Dow will be shaken up with Exxon, Pfizer and Raytheon being thrown out of the Dow, and replaced by Salesforce, Amgen and Honeywell. The move was designed to lessen the blow from the Apple 4 to 1 split, and rebalance the mix within the Dow. Apple shares will split 4 to 1 on Friday. The Dow is leading the way higher in premarket futures trading and will look toward getting back above unchanged on the year. The Dow closed just 0.81% away from the unchanged level at 28358.44 (the Dow closed just 50 points off that level yesterday. .
The USD today is mostly lower with declines vs. all the major currencies with the exception of the JPY.
The ranges and changes show the largest range vs the USD being the GBP at 83 pips with the pair up 66 pips on the day. The USDJPY is trading just off it's high for the day. The EURUSD is higher but trading mid-range. The USDCHF, USDCAD, AUDUSD and NZDUSD have low to high trading ranges of 44 pips or lower. JPY crosses are all higher reflective of risk on flows.
In other markets:
- Spot gold is trading down $7.50 or -0.39% $1921.37. That is also near its session lows of $1920. The high price for the day reached $1937.56
- Spot silver is also lower trading down $-0.29 or -1.11% $26.30. That is also near its session lows of $26.28. The high price reached $26.80
- WTI crude oil futures trading up $0.26 or 0.61% at $42.87. The high price today has reached $42.93 while the low extended to $42.31. Crude oil remains stock between its 50 day moving average at $41.08 and its 200 day moving average at $43.35. Hurricanes Marco (weakening) and Laura (now a hurricane) are heading into the Gulf of Mexico and closing down oil platforms in the area.
In the premarket trading for US stocks the futures are implying a higher but mixed opening, with the Dow stocks leading the way the NASDAQ index is near unchanged
- Dow industrial average trading up one sixty-seven points
- S&P index is up 14 points
- NASDAQ is implying 2 point gain
Both the NASDAQ and S&P closed at record levels yesterday. As a result any gains today would be a new record
In the European equity markets, the major indices are trading higher for the 2nd consecutive day.
- German DAX, +0.77%
- France's CAC, +0.85%
- UK's FTSE 100, +0.2%
- Spain's Ibex, +1.0%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.8%
In the US debt market yields are near higher with the yield curve steepening a bit. The 2-10 year spread is up to 52 pips from 50.29 pips at the close yesterday.
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are all trading higher with the Italian yields up 7.7 basis points. German 10 year yields are up 5.0 basis points
