China Stock market returns from Luna New Year break. Chinese stocks rose while most other Asian equities fell as investors looked to interest rate decisions scheduled this week in the US, UK and Europe and busy earnings agenda. Nikkei ended at a more than 1-month high today. Global Stocks excluding China are lower, USD steady and Yields picked up. European & UK FUTS also lower.
The rout in India’s Adani Group is weighing on sentiment while the December income report showed cooling in income, a drop in spending, and deceleration in the annual measures of inflation, supporting the well-expected step down in the FOMC’s rate hikes to 25 bps on February 1.
“Markets could sell stocks to book profits ahead of the Fed meeting, NFP, & earnings?”
- The USD Index – bouncing between 101.50-101.90.
- EUR – sank below 1.0900 again.
- JPY – sank to test 129.23 overnight but currently settled at 129.65.
- GBP – stuck between 1.2340-1.2430.
- Stocks – The US markets are lower after last week’s rally. US100 -0.95% at 12128, US500 traded at 4060 (-0.4%). AMEX & TSLA (+10.6% & 11.00%) leaders – INTEL & Chevron laggards (-6.4% & -4.4%). Of the 25% of the S&P that has reported so far, nearly half have beaten sales estimates, and over 70% have beaten earnings.
- Tesla +11.00% (7.2 million contracts were exchanged on Friday, according to Cboe Global Markets data, breaking the previous record of 5.2 million contracts set earlier this month and accounting for nearly 13% of all options trading) – its best week since 2013. Cashed out $175 million just on Friday.
- USOil – jumped on the open but quick pullback below $80.00, alongside other raw materials including copper, with losses in oil also coming despite an Israeli drone strike against a target in Iran over the weekend, according to Wall Street.
- Gold – Tested$1934 in themorning before turning to $1925 support.
- BTC – Jumped to $23,854 buoyed by signs that the US Federal Reserve will slow the pace of its interest rate increases. Bitcoin rallied by more than 40% this month.
Today – German Q4 GDP -1.1% decline; Earnings: More than 100 S&P 500 companies, including six Dow components, are slated to report earnings in the week ahead,i.e. Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Ford, McDonald’s, Pfizer etc. Biggest FX Mover @ (07:30 GMT) AUDJPY (-0.48%). Declined from 92.65 high, to test S2 at 91.69. MAs aligning lower, MACD histogram & signal line turn negative. RSI 37 & neutral, H1 ATR 0.208, Daily ATR 1.246.
