What is moving the markets? Where are the markets moving?

The new week is underway and it will be dissected on Wednesday by New Years Day holiday on January 1. The US stock market will have a full day on New Years Eve (closing at 4 PM ET), but the US bond market will close early at 2 PM ET to start the festivities. Some important international markets will be shut, or close early, on New Year’s Eve. Exchanges in London and Hong Kong, for instance, will close early, while there will be no trading in Japan. With a limited economic schedule on the 31st (S&P/CS home price data will be the only economic release scheduled), barring any geopolitical event, the markets will be influenced by year-end flows.

Overnight:

• Japan’s factory activity contracted with the au Jibun Bank PMI rising to 49.6 from 49.0 in November. The estimate was slighltly lower at 49.5
• The index remained below the 50.0 growth threshold for the sixth month.

In trading today, US pending home sales will be released at 10 AM ET with the estimate at 0.9% vs last month up 2.0%

Looking at the markets US stocks are continuing the flows seen at the end of last week with the Nasdaq falling sharply in pre-market trading. On Friday the Nasdaq tumbled -298.33 points or -1.49%. The Dow fell -333.59 points or 0.77% and the S&P fell -66.75 points or -.1.11%.

In early trading today, the major indice futures are heading lower with the last hour stepping up the declines in volatile trading. A snapshot of the futures are now implying:

• Dow -292 points
• S&P -49 potins
• Nasdaq -178 points.

Looking at the European equity markets a snapshot shows mixed results:

• German DAX, -0.42%
• France’s CAC, -0.1%
• UK FTSE 100, -0.26%
• Spain’s Ibex, +0.22%
• Italy’s FTSE MIB, +0.18%

In the US debt market, the 10 year yield at the end of last week moved up 100 basis points from the time the Fed started to cut rate with the yield running from 3.62% to 4.62% (the high yield reached 4.639%). In trading today, the 10 year is down -4.6 bps to 4.583%. A snapshot of the yield curve shows:

• 2-year 4.289%, -4.1 basis points
• 5-year 4.410%, -5.5 basis points
• 10 year yield 4.583%, -4.6 basis points
• 30 year yield 4.788%, -3.3 basis points

Looking at the forex market, the USD is mostly lower vs the major currencies with only a small gains vs the CHF. The greenback is lower vs the other currencies with declines of -0.43% vs the NZD and -0.32% vs the AUD leading the way.

• EUR -0.20%
• JPY -0.18%
• GBP-0.11%
• CHF +0.16%
• CAD -0.14%
• AUD -0.32%
• NZD -0.43%

Looking at other markets:

• Crude oil up $0.20 at $70.81
• Gold is near unchanged at $2621.30
• Silver is up $0.09 at $29.43
• Bitcoin is trading at $93612 after closing at $94168 on Friday.

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