The AUD and NZD are the strongest and the CHF is the weakest as the North American session begins. The AUD and NZD continue to get a boost from higher commodity trends. The CHF weakened after the SNB said it would look to intervene to weaken it's currency. The EURCHF reached a low of 0.9971 but has bounced and trades at 1.0079.
Russia continues shelling Ukraine as the invasion is now in day 12, but talks will resume today between the two nations. Moscow has reiterated that shelling would stop with the caveats that have been rejected by Ukraine already (see Justin's post here). Is there a compromise somewhere? Zelensky continues to push toward a no-fly zone, but US/NATO are apprehensive for fear of much further escalation (with talks of WWIII).
Meanwhile oil surged, but is lower. Wheat moved to another all time high and up limit at 1294. Gold moved higher and above $2000, but has backed off. Stocks are lower but off the lows.
A snap shot of the markets are showing:
- Gold is trading at $1983.15 up $12.79 or 0.64%. The price traded up to $2002.57 and above $2000 for the first times since August 19, 2020 before coming off those lofty levels
- Crude oil is trading at $120.54 up $4.80 on the day. The price overnight moved up to a high of $130.50 area before backing off. It is still higher but trading near session lows. Hopes for an Iran deal is a hope. Reports of loosening sanctions on Venezuela is a possibility. Does the US open up production and open up more supply from Canada. On Sunday, Alberta's Energy Minister Sonya Savage, "Alberta has some spare pipeline and rail capacity and can move more oil to the United States".
- Bitcoin is trading at $38637. The price low today reached $37592.73. The high over the weekend reached $39701on Sunday. On Friday, the price closed near $39175
In the premarket for US stocks, the major indices are off their lows seen earlier today. The Dow was down about -550 points at the overnight session lows:
- Dow, -322 points after Friday's -179.86 point decline
- S&P -25.5 points after Friday's -34.62 point decline
- Nasdaq is down -125 points after Friday's -224.50 point decline
In the European stock market the major indices are lower but off lows as well.
- German Dax is down -1.6%. The low reached -5.03%
- France's CAC is down -1.4%. The low reached -5.04%
- UKs FTSE 100 is down -0.55%. The low reached -2.94%
- Spain's Ibex is down -1.3%. The low reached -5.62%
- Italy's FTSE MIB is down -0.4%. The low reached -6.10%
In the US debt market, yields have moved higher in a bounce back after last week's move lower and a flattening of the yield curve. .
In the European debt market, the 10 year yields have also seen a rebound higher in trading today.
