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(Wallace Refiners) – Overnight in the Asian session gold and silver have turned are now looking bearish. Gold moved 0.69% lower and trades at $1710oz while silver moved 1.56% lower to trade at $25.70/oz.
After inheriting a positive handover from Wall Street the major bourses in the Asia-Pac area are all in the black. The Nikkei 225 pushed 1.73% higher, the Shanghai Composite is 0.47% in the black and Australia’s ASX has increased by 0.79%.
In the FX markets, the greenback has made a comeback. USD/JPY was the best performing pair rising half a percent, while NZD/USD fell around the same amount. With the exception of tin, the base metals are mostly in the red with copper trading 1.43% lower and oil also dropped 0.52%.
After the US administration passed the stimulus bill, US Treasury Sec Yellen says some Americans will receive $1400 payments this weekend. This is leaving many wondering if we could see a rally in crypto, GameStop or retail-focused equities.
Singapore’s Prime Minister says there is a heightened risk of even worse US-China strains. This comment is interesting as some top US and Chinese officials are set to meet in Alaska next week. Overnight a US state department spokesperson said the US will not pull any punches in disagreements with China.
There were some rumours that the Bank of Japan may abandon its ETF target. This could send shock waves through the Japanese stock markets.
US President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Suga are set to Meet in April, according to reports.
Sticking with US President Biden, he is to make all adults eligible for vaccines no later than May 1. The US has some catching up to do and Biden is determined to get the vaccine program moving.
As yields have been in focus recently Deutsche Bank’s end of 2021 US 10-Year yield forecast is 2.25%. This could be higher than some people and analysts had been predicting.
Moving on to the coronavirus, AstraZeneca further slashes its target for supply to EU in Q1 to 30 mln vaccines. The EU have not been happy with AstraZeneca and recently moved to ban exports of the vaccine.
Australian Foreign Minister says Australia is very concerned about China moves on Hong Kong. This is on the agenda when the US and China have the aforementioned meeting next week but many other nations have condemned China’s actions.
For the base metal trades out there, the European Union aims to produce battery cells for at least 7m electric cars a year by 2025.
Back to Joe Biden now and the US administration is further restricting supplies to Chinese company Huawei.
There has been some good vaccine news as the Novavax coronavirus vaccine showed a 96.4% efficacy in UK phase 3 trial.
After the ECB meeting yesterday there have been source reports that the ECB are not planning that the quicker bond-buying would to lead to further stimulus.
There has just been some data releases in the UK: GDP (YoY) -9.2% vs expected -7.8%, Industrial Production (MoM) (Jan) -1.5% vs expected -0.6% and Manufacturing Production (MoM) (Jan) -2.3% vs expected -0.8%.
For the rest of the session, highlights include EU industrial production, US PPI, Canadian employment data, Michigan data and the weekly Baker Hughes rig count.
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