A relatively quiet day for the forex, with the economic calendar light on Tier-1 news this afternoon. However, we have had a lot of earnings reports which the US equity markets have so far not found anything to take them back to all-time highs.
At the London session close the Nasdaq, S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrials were down -0.38%, -0.01%, and -0.04% respectively, with some big names in the Tech sector to report after the market closes. Alphabet, Microsoft, and AMD are due to report today. Tesla made money via Bitcoin investments but the earnings report was disappointing and are likely the weight around the Nasdaq’s neck currently. 88% of the 152 companies from the S&P500 have reported and beat estimates so far. Hinting that equities are likely to remain buoyant if the FAANMG can show improved data.
Stock markets across Europe closed mostly in the red on Tuesday, with Frankfurt's DAX 30 ending 0.3% lower at 15,249 led by losses in automakers.
Tomorrow is the FOMC meeting announcement, so I am expecting the risk-off mood to remain for another day at least.
On the economic calendar, we did have some data out of the USA with prices of homes rising by 12% in February year-on-year as seen in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller, 20-city home price index. The rise in prices was the most since February 2006 and above today's expectations of 11.7%. The rationale for the surge in the process is that the pandemic has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes.
US Consumer Confidence for April 2021 beet expectations, coming at 121.7 with the previous reading adjusted down to 109.0
Natural Gas and Oil futures are currently higher at the London close, as the 29th Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners (OPEC+) ended in a recommendation to keep the current oil production cut deal in place. In early April, the OPEC+ cartel agreed to gradually raise production in May, June, and July. I am not sure if the prices will hold with India suffering from the pandemic spike in infections, so in my opinion, it doesn’t warrant more output currently. The next meeting was penciled in for early June with regards to adjusting the output deal if required.
Prices in energy were supported by the US dollar remaining below the $91 level. Today’s range on the DXY has been negligible. However, the EURUSD did break lower than yesterday’s low print but has since come back into yesterday's range. The biggest gainer of the USD majors was likely to remain USDJPY which is currently up 0.51% as the BoJ this morning kept rates negative and on hold.
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