The USD is mostly lower
As North American traders enter for the day, the JPY is the strongest and the GBP is the weakest (after negative GDP growth). Tensions with China ratcheted higher again overnight. US stocks and European stocks are lower leading to a flight into safety trade. The EURUSD is back to being bought on the back of what is bad for the US (in China) is good for the EU. The EUR is ignoring issues in Italy. Justin pointed out the ugly in the German imports and exports date released today. That is also largely ignored.
The ranges and changes are showing most of the activity is in the GBP pairs as they trade at low extremes for the pound (and have the larger ranges). The EURUSD only has a 28 pip range for the day. The other pairs vs the USD are also relatively tame with the USDJPY at 43 pips, the next largest range.
In other markets:
- spot gold is trading down $1.10 or -0.7% at $1499.91
- WTI crude oil futures are up $0.64 of 1.24% at $53.19
Both gold and crude are not following the risk off trade sentiment from earlier this week.
In the premarket for US equities, the futures are applying a lower opening, but off lower levels:
- Dow, -90 points
- S&P. -11 points
- NASDAQ -45 points
European shares are lower:
- German DAX, -1%
- France's CAC, -0.8%
- UK's FTSE, unchanged
- Spains Ibex, -1.1%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, -2.3%
In the US debt market yields are mixed in the morning snapshot
In Europe, the benchmark 10 year yields are also mixed with investors fleeing Italian notes (up nearly 25 basis points).
