The USD is mixed but weaker

The risk on flows is helping the NZD and AUD. They are the strongest of the majors at the start of the North American session (and the start of December). The China manufacturing data was better which helped. Also, the Christmas buying season the US got off to be gains over the Thanksgiving, Black Friday, weekend shopping period which improve sentiment. Pres. Trumps tweet that he would impose tariffs on Brazilian and Argentinian steel was a negative early this morning. The CAD is the weakest with the JPY lagging just behind. The USD is a little lower thanks to the declines vs the NZD and AUD. The pair is mixed vs the other pairs with modest changes vs the EUR. GBP and JPY from Friday's closing levels.

The USD is mixed but weaker

The ranges and changes are ok but not great. The NZDUSD is the outlier rising above its 22 day average (52 pips on the day and above the red line in the lower chart below). The other pairs vs the USD have ranges of less than 34 pipss with the EURUSD and USDJPY mired in a 24 and 25 pip range. The EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDJPY are within 8 pips of Friday closing levels.

The ranges and changes for the major pairs

In other markets,

  • spot gold is down $5.35 or -0.37% at $1458.56
  • WTI crude oil futures are up $1.10 or 1.99% at $56.27

In the premarket for US stocks, the futures are implying higher openings:

  • Dow, +68 points
  • S&P index +7.62 points
  • NASDAQ index +17.82 points

In the European equity markets the major indices are down on the day.

  • German DAX, -0.25%
  • France's CAC, -0.41%
  • UK's FTSE 100, -0.1%
  • Spain's Ibex, -0.9%
  • Italy's FTSE MIB, -1.0%

In the US debt market yields are trading higher with the yield curve steepening. The two year note is trading up 1.8 basis points, while the 10 year is up 6 basis points.

The US yields are trading higher

In the European debt market yields on the benchmark 10 year yields are also higher:

European benchmark yields are also higher