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(Wallace Refiners) – Gold and silver trade flat heading into the EU open this morning. It must be said this does come after a good performance yesterday from the precious metals sector. In the Asia Pac region indices performed well overnight with the Nikkei 225 (0.82%), ASX (0.79%) and Shanghai Composite (1.07%) all rising. In the FX space, NZD/USD was the best performing pair moving around 0.45% higher.
The main bit of news came from the US as Joe Biden was sworn in as the new President of the United States. US bourses took the event in a positive light and the general risk sentiment was firmly positive as the Nasdaq, Dow and S&P 500 traded at all-time highs once again.
Joe Biden also signed a whole host of executive orders as expected. These include revocation of Keystone XL oil pipeline permit and a document rejoining Paris climate cord. Canada’s Kenney said Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL is a gut punch to Canada.
Overnight the Bank of Japan had their latest rate decision and as expected there was no change. The QQE and yield curve control also remained the same and the JGB target remains the same at 0%. The BoJ did once again reiterate they are willing to add use more tools if needed. They also noted it was too early to consider an exit from powerful monetary stimulus.
There was also some data from Australia. Their latest employment change figure for December came in line with expectations at 50.0K. The unemployment rate in the nation improved slightly to 6.6% from 6.8% and it also been the analyst consensus of 6.7%.
On the political front, China has sanctioned some of former President Trump’s team. This did include former Secretary of State Pompeo. There were some comments from Joe Biden’s National Security Council spokeswoman who said the sanctions were unproductive and cynical.
Looking ahead to the rest of the session highlights include the ECB rate decision, Turkish rate decision, US building permits, US weekly initial jobless claims, Philly Fed manufacturing index and NZ CPI. We will also hear from ECB’s Lagarde.
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