As the North American session begins, the JPY is the strongest and the AUD is the weakest. The Nancy Pelosi trip to Taiwan as the markets skittish with China/US tensions increasing and fears of a China military reaction the possibility.
As a result stocks are on the back foot and moving lower in Europe and the US.. The US major indices are lower for the 2nd consecutive day after solid gains in July. Today AMD, Caterpillar, DuPont highlight the earnings calendar. Uber has jumped as revenue beat despite quarterly loss. It's shares are up 14.55%. JetBlue is following on a earnings miss due to higher costs (-4.5%). Marriot shares are rising (+2) after revenue beat and better-than-expected guidance.
In the forex, there is a flight into the relative safety of the JPY.
US yields are tilting to the downside. Today the US JOLTs job openings are expected to dip to 11 million from 11.254 million. The data is for June which is old but trends in the employment situation have been deteriorating modestly over time. Will that trend started showing up in the job opening posts?
The AUD is sharply lower despite the increase in rates raised rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia. As expected the RBA raised rates by 50 basis points but in the statement, the central bank changed up the wording on rate hikes by saying it is now taking further steps in terms of normalising policy and not withdrawing monetary support. They also said that policymakers may not be on a "pre-set path" moving forward. The market reacting with the sharp move to the downside in the AUD pairs.
A snapshot of other markets are showing:
- spot gold is trading up $7.32 or 0.42% at $1778.82..
- Spot silver is up $0.08 or 0.43% $20.44
- WTI crude oil is up $0.21 and $94.15 after a sharp fall yesterday on demand concerns
- The price bitcoin is trading at $22,921 down marginally on the day. There is a report that Nomad a bridge for allocating crypto tokens across different block chains, suffered a major hack losing nearly 200 million.
In the premarket for US stocks, the major indices are lower for the 2nd consecutive day
- Dow industrial average is down -152 points after yesterdays -46.73 point decline
- S&P index is down -25 points after yesterdays -11.64 point decline
- NASDAQ index is down -95 points after yesterdays -21.71 point decline
In the European equity markets the German and France CAC are lower while the UK and Ibex are trading above and below unchanged:
- German DAX, -0.58%
- France's CAC -0.46%
- UK's FTSE 100 unchanged
- Spain's Ibex +0.11%
- Italy's FTSE MIB -0.71%
In the US debt market, yields are marginally lower:
- 2 year 2.866%, -1.0 basis points
- 5 year 2.617% -2.0 basis points
- 10 year 2.557% -2.0 basis points
- 30 year 2.82% -3.5 basis points
In the European debt market, the yields are lower across the board.
