Articles

You would expect gold to benefit with global computers crashing but that’s not the case today. Commodities are struggling across the board as profit taking hits hard.

Gold is down nearly 2% and silver is down 3.3% as this week’s breakout fails. It’s now down on the week and if we finish like this then we’re going to have a worrisome weekly candle.

It’s tough to tie this one back to fundamentals as the WSJ writes today that the Fed should be cutting in July. Falling behind the curve will lead to heavier cuts later and more dollar weakness — both should boost gold.

In other markets, there is a rise in yields that is negative for gold but it’s 4-5 bps across the curve. The FX market isn’t doing much but the dollar is generally stronger.

I suspect that algos are being turned off today and that’s going to make market moves tough to read.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

NBC reports that Biden’s family has specifically discussed how he wants to end his campaign, including the timing. They cite sources.

Biden’s family members have specifically discussed how he would want to
end his re-election bid on his own timing and with a carefully
calculated plan in place. Considerations about the impact of the
campaign on his health, his family and the stability of the country are
among those at the forefront of the discussions, the people familiar
with the discussions said.

“I think it’s inevitable,” a second person close to the re-election effort was quoted as saying. It even notes a report that his speechwriter was writing his exit speech.

Almost simultaneously, Biden’s campaign chair said he will be back on the campaign trail next week in an interview on MSNBC.

Biden’s odds of staying in the race are at 22% on PredictIt and I’m thinking that’s too high.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Major US exchanges are set to open normally today and say they’re not affected by the Crowdstrike outage.

I fear secondary effects. So much of the liquidity in global markets is powered by algos and if those are affected or shut off as a precaution today then bid-ask spreads could blow out.

ZeroHedge reports that Spread between bid and ask yields on the two-year UK bond briefly widened as much as 15 basis points. We could be seeing more of that today in stocks, bonds and FX, with stops being triggered as a result.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior IPPI prices 0.0% revised to 0.2%
• IPPI prices 0.0% versus 0.2% expected
• IPPI prices YoY 2.8%
• Raw material price index -1.4% versus -0.7% expected. Prior month -1.5%
• RMPI YoY +7.5%

Details of IPPI prices:

• Prices for meat, fish, and dairy products: +2.4%. That was the largest contributor
  • Fresh and frozen beef and veal: +5.6%
  • Fresh and frozen pork: +4.6%
• Prices for pulp and paper products: +1.7%
  • Wood pulp: +2.9%
• Prices for primary non-ferrous metal products: -0.4%
  • Unwrought nickel and nickel alloys: -10.3%
  • Unwrought copper and copper alloys: -4.5%
• Prices for energy and petroleum products: -0.4%
  • Finished motor gasoline: -3.5%
  • Diesel: +3.3%

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior was +0.7% (revised to +0.6%)
• Ex autos -1.3% vs -0.5% expected
• Prior ex-autos +1.8% (revised to +1.7%)
• Ex autos and gasoline -1.4% vs +1.4% prior
• Largest decrease in sales was at food and beverage retailers (-1.9%)
• Lower sales in May were also reported at building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers (-2.7%) and general merchandise retailers (-1.0%)
• Preliminary June data -0.3% m/m
• Full report

The market was pricing in a 95% chance of a BOC cut ahead of the data and I’d say it’s a certainty after this with the case growing to continue cuts at the Sept meeting.

The Canadian consumer is rolling over. In a separate report, the Scotiabank Canadian Spending Tracker ended Q2/24 on a weak note, with June’s year-over-year growth at +2.6%, its weakest since early 2021 during the pandemic.

USD/CAD is up 17 pips to 1.3722, which is the highest since July 1.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

The Crowdstrike outage is continuing and we have some details from the CEO who spoke with NBC:

• Says only Microsoft operating system is affected
• We are working with every customer to bring them back online
• Issue has been resolved, now issue is recovering systems

This is a real mess. Crowdstrike shares have been a market darling this year and are down 11.5% premarket.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Headlines:

• Global tech outages impact markets at the European open
• Tech shares fall as global IT outage greets Europe in the morning
• Microsoft says underlying issue causing the tech outage has been resolved
• ECB’s Villeroy: market expectations on rates seem rather reasonable
• ECB’s Muller: It’s important not to pre-commit on September
• ECB’s Šimkus: I agree with markets which sees two more rate cuts this year
• BOJ bond meeting minutes shows some mixed views on pace of tapering
• UK June retail sales -1.2% vs -0.4% m/m expected
• Germany June producer prices +0.2% vs +0.1% m/m expected
• Eurozone May current account balance €37.0 billion vs €38.6 billion prior

Markets:

• USD leads, NZD lags on the day
• European equities lower; S&P 500 futures up 0.2%
• US 10-year yields up 0.6 bps to 4.210%
• Gold down 1.3% to $2,413.68
• WTI crude up 0.1% to $80.88
• Bitcoin flat at $63,979

The session started with a quieter mood initially, before a widespread of tech outages were reported across major networks around the globe. It started with Microsoft saying that it had some issues with its cloud system and that grounded several flights from smaller airlines.

Eventually, the world would soon realise that it was much a bigger problem as banks, media outlets, airlines, and pretty much all services with Microsoft-related systems were all down. Even trading brokerages were affected as we got to the European market open.

Microsoft said it had to do with a CrowdStrike update which was flawed, causing an error in its systems.

In any case, the chaos that ensued saw stocks sell off for bit in Europe before calmer heads prevailed. S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% before falling by 0.4%, then now recovering to be up by 0.2% again. European equities saw red at the open and didn’t really recover too much though, as tech shares are the ones leading the bounce.

The moves there didn’t quite translate to much action in major currencies though. FX was quieter as the dollar is holding steady ahead of the final stretch of the week.

EUR/USD is down 0.1% to 1.0890 while GBP/USD keeps with the rejection of 1.3000 to be down 0.2% to 1.2915 on the day. USD/JPY saw some light pushing and pulling but is now flattish at around 157.40 levels.

Well, as the global IT hiccup looks to have come and gone, the focus turns back towards whether Wall Street will stick to the selloff seen in the last two days to wrap up the week.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

The cause pointed out by Microsoft was that there was a flawed update of CrowdStrike program that took down its systems. That has resulted in massive IT failures and outages across the globe, hindering services and businesses all around. CrowdStrike did also earlier say that they had deployed a fix to the issue while confirming that it was not a cyberattack.

In a day and age where we rely so much on programming and machine functions to go about our day, it’s a good reminder of the simpler times when a lot of the tasks were done manually. And those days were not too long ago. It’s amazing how far technology has come in the last 10-15 years. But also scary on how we have grown to be so reliant on it as well now.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

At some point on Wednesday, it looked like the dollar was bound to break down further. But a strong reversal yesterday is setting up for a continued move today, with the greenback keeping steadier across the board thus far. Of note, GBP/USD is facing a strong rejection after a brief push above the 1.3000 mark this week.

The pair has also fallen past its 23.6 Fib retracement level of the swing higher this month, now eyeing the 38.2 Fib retracement level at 1.2879 next. The 100 and 200-hour moving averages at 1.2975 and 1.2924 respectively are also giving way, putting sellers in near-term control.

Meanwhile, EUR/USD is also down another 0.2% to 1.0878 and testing its own 200-hour moving average currently. Break below that and sellers will also seize more near-term control there.

Besides that, the softer risk mood amid all the chaos from the global IT outage is helping to pin down the aussie and kiwi as well. AUD/USD is down 0.2% to 0.6690 in a fifth straight day of losses, with NZD/USD down 0.3% to 0.6024 in a fall to its weakest since May.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

The post Ex-Dividend 22/07/2024 first appeared on IC Markets | Official Blog.

For this year, inflation is projected to average at 2.4%, which is similar to the last survey three months ago. Then, inflation is expected to slow to 2.0% next year and then potentially falling to 1.9% by 2026. As for the long-term, defined as 2028, inflation is seen being at exactly the 2% mark.

A thing to note is that the survey itself shows inflation slowing quicker than the ECB’s own staff projections. But again, any future policy deliberations will depend more on the hard data. And that will mean the upcoming consumer price inflation reports.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.

• Prior €38.6 billion

Slight delay in the release by the source. Looking at the details, surpluses were recorded for goods (€33 billion), services (€15 billion) and primary income (€4 billion). These were partly offset by a deficit for secondary income (€14 billion).

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.