Bond yields come off highs. Gold lower. Stocks little changed ahead of Retail Sales/PPI
As North American traders enter for the day, the USD is the strongest of the majors while the NZD is the weakest. Today, the US has a data dump with PPI, retail sales, industrial production and capacity utilization, business inventories, NAHB housing data in Fed minutes all on the schedule. Yields on the longer and continued the move to a new cycle high, but have backed off into the opening and are down modestly. US stocks are mixed in premarket trading. The strong to weakest are relatively scrunched together. The USD is the strongest but has the CAD and JPY just behind. For the NZD it is fighting with the EUR and CHF as the weakest today.
The changes and ranges show the USDJPY and USDCAD near unchanged on the day. For the USDJPY the pair is in the middle of the range. For the USDCAD it has had an up and down day today, but most of the time has been spent above the unchanged level The USDCHF is trading at highs and moving above the 50% of the move down from the Feb 5 high to the low reached yesterday. It also moved above the 200 hour MA for the first time since Feb 9th. The EURUSD is also near the low extreme as it too fell back below its 200 hour MA intraday.
In other markets:
- Bitcoin traded to a new all time high of $51,717.88. The current price is trading at $50,900 that's up $2320 or 4.77%
- Spot gold is trading down as the dollar rises. The precious metal is down $4.57 or -0.26% $1789.84
- Spot silver is trading down $0.07 or -0.25% $27.17
- WTI crude oil futures are trading up $0.91 or 1.52% at $60.96 for the March contract. The April contract is trading up $0.92 or 1.53% at $61 even
In the premarket for US stocks, the futures are implying a mixed picture. Yesterday the Dow industrial average closed at a record high, but the S&P index and NASDAQ were lower on the day. Today the story is the same with the Dow marginally higher in the S&P and NASDAQ index showing modest declines
- S&P index up 1 point after yesterdays -2.24 point decline yesterday
- Dow industrial average up 22 points after a record close yesterday
- NASDAQ index down -22 points after a -47 points 974 point decline yesterday
In the European equity markets the major indices are trading lower. The France's CAC is fairing the best at near unchanged levels
- German DAX, -0.48%
- France's CAC, unchanged
- UK's FTSE 100, -0.15%
- Spain's Ibex, -0.4%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, -0.4%
In the US debt market, yields are negative after running to a new cycle highs for the 10 and 30 year. The 10 year yield traded as high as 1.331% and the 30 year yield reached 2.11% before coming back lower. The 2-10 year spread which reached 121 bps earlier is back at 118.36 and lower from yesterday's close at 119.51 bps.
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are modestly higher (with a small decline in the UK the exception).
