Axi | Apr 16, 2018 09:11
Originally published by AxiTrader
Welcome to my daily Markets Musings.
Apologies this morning folks – my normal email is down as is my market pricing machine. So short and sweet.
Feedback always welcome
Greg
h2 Market Summary (7.40am Monday April 16)/h2US stocks finished the week higher but were down on the day Friday as prices drifted into a weekend which was likely to bring some sort of Syrian action.
That’s of course what we saw Saturday my time – Friday evening Washington – with the US, UK, and France raining missile strikes on selected targets of the Assad regime. President Trump declared it “mission accomplished”, Theresa May said there are no plans to strike again and a “message has been sent”. That’s a clear message to the Russians.
The markets – and the three powers involved – will hope the Russians see this as a clinical strike with no need for repercussions. But we’ll just have to wait and see, what, if anything, the Russians do.
To the market then, and forex traders have opened up fairly sanguine so far this morning without too much of a deviation from Friday’s New York close. The Aussie dollar and yen – which might be expected to show the earliest signs of tension in markets - sit at 0.7766 and 107.33 respectively. That's below Friday’s highs as both AUD/USD and USD/JPY slipped into the close as US stocks slid. The eurois at 1.2329 and the pound is at 1.4239.
On stocks now and the release of decent earnings from JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Citi (NYSE:C) couldn’t lift the markets with the S&P 500 down 0.3% to finish at 2,656 while the Dow lost half a percent to finish at 24,360. On the week though the S&P 500 was 2%.
Part of that was the big fall in Michigan consumer sentiment survey from the 14 year high of 101.4 to 97.8 which was well below the 100.5 forecast. The JOLTS survey also showed a dip in jobs.
Here at home it’s likely to be a mixed day. US and SPI200 trade was actually quite indecisive on Friday night. Many forces and an expectation that earnings will rescue US stocks from their funk. But will it.
The reality is it was a positive week but an indecisive day to end it. Can earnings season reinvigorate the bulls? We’ll know this week.
On bond markets the US 2-year is at 2.36% while the 10 is at 2.82%.
To commodities now and geopolitical pressures continued to drive oil prices higher. Brent and WTI both closed higher and both ended the week above range tops which opens the prospect of the $8-10 move I’ve been presaging for a while now. WTI’s close at $67.39 was in fact the highest weekly close since late 2014. Gold lifted back into the mid $1340’s also the beneficiary of a geopolitical bid. It’s at $1345. Copper was largely unchanged and aluminium gave back some of its solid – sanction related – gains.
On the day today it is quiet here at home but tonight US retail sales will be the big event. And of course the price action in stocks, and any Russian reaction to yet more sanctions and the attack on Syria, will also be an important driver of markets.
Tonight’s big earnings announcements are – Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW).
h2 Here's What I Picked Up (with a little more detail and a few charts)/h2 h2 International/h2CNBC reports . Me? I have no idea. I’m just following the price action and the S&P 500 has to get up and through 2,675/2,700 otherwise it’s mapping out a range. New highs though as MS suggests…not sure we’ll see that before a break lower again.
h2 Australia/h2
h2 Forex/h2
h2 Commodities/h2
Have a great day's trading.
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