The USD is tilting to the upside ahead of FOMC decision
It's Fed decision day. Adam makes a great point in a post yesterday by saying the statement today (or perhaps even the press conference) won't give us the insight that the minutes will tell us a few weeks down the read (read here). In any case, the Fed is not expected to announce any major changes as far as policy, but words will be dissected closely. There will be no change in economic forecasts nor dot plot at this meeting. The Fed chair will conduct a press conference starting at 2:30 PM ET.
The morning snapshot in the forex is showing the NZD is the strongest while the GBP is the weakest (the GBP was the strongest at the close yesterday). The USD is tilting more to the upside with gains against the EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF and AUD. The CAD and NZD are lower in the snapshot.
The US will release the goods trade balance, wholesale/retail inventories, and weekly oil inventory data this morning. Canada will release their retail sales for February. Pres. Biden will have his state of the union address tonight.
Looking at the ranges and changes, activities barely muted with ranges in US dollar pairs fit 54 pips or less. The USDCAD only has a 32-bit trading range. The EURUSD is at 37 pips. The EURJPY and GBPJPY searched yesterday (by 83 and 99 pips near the close) but are trading in the red today.
In other markets, as North American traders enter for the day:
- Spot gold it is trading down -$10.21 -0.58% at $1766.48
- Spot silver is down -$0.35 or -1.35% or $25.91
- WTI crude oil futures are up $0.55 or 0.87% $63.49
- Bitcoin is trading down around $200 -0.36% $54,995
The premarket for US stocks are implying a lower open. Earnings today include Facebook and Apple (and others) after the close. Amazon releases tomorrow:
- Dow, -80 points
- S&P, -0.6 points
- Nasdaq -21 points
In the European equity markets, the major indices are mostly higher:
- German DAX, +0.4%
- France's CAC, +0.55%
- UK's FTSE, +0.5%
- Spain's Ibex, +0.6%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, unchanged
In the US debt market, yields are inching higher with a steeper yield curve. The 2-10 spread is up to 146 basis points from 144.18 basis points of the close yesterday:
In the European market, the benchmark 10 year yields are moving higher as well. The France 10 year yield is up 3.1 basis points and now up to 0.123%.
