Daily summary: Gloomy start to the month

• European finished the first trading session of March lower, with DAX 40 falling nearly 0.4%, as hotter-than-expected German CPI data and hawkish remarks by ECB officials overshadowed upbeat Chinese manufacturing data. 

• Joachim Nagel, president of the Germany’s Bundesbank and one of the ECB’s more hawkish members, told CNBC that consumer price rises are set to remain stubbornly high and further significant rate hikes beyond March may be needed

• Also the latest PMI survey pointed to an eighth consecutive month of decline in Eurozone's manufacturing output.

• Major Wall Street indices also fell on Wednesday pressured by higher yields and hawkish comments from FED members.

• Fed's Bostic still believes that the US central bank’s policy rate should be raised to the 5.00%-5.25% range and stay at that level well into 2024.Earlier Fed's Kashkari said he is not sure if FED will be able to achieve a soft landing.

• Fed swaps price in peak policy rate of 5.49% in September 2023.

• US ISM Manufacturing PMI edged higher to 47.7 in February from 47.4 in January, which was the lowest since May 2020, but fell short of expectations of 48.

• The 1-year US yield broke above 5%, while benchmark 10-year yield jumped to 4.0%, a level not seen since November which negatively affects tech and other high-growth stocks.

• Rivian shares fell 16.0% as EV producers posted disappointing  revenue figures for the Q4 while production outlook came in below analysts’ estimates.

• Precious metals strengthened amid dollar weakness, however upward momentum lost its steam in the evening. Gold pulled back from session high at $1845, while silver failed to stay above the $21.00 mark.

• OIL.WTI price rose sharply and tested local resistance at $77.80 despite stocks of crude oil in the US rose by 1.166 million barrels to 851.8 million, the highest level since September 2022. 

• USD is the worst performing G10 currency as trades moved funds into riskier currencies amid upbeat economic data in China. The yuan and the Australian and New Zealand dollars benefited from robust Chinese manufacturing data, while inflation worries in Europe boosted EUR.

• Major cryptocurrencies are trading higher, however Bitcoin again failed to break above $24,000 handle, while Ethereum jumped above resistance at $1650.

US500 fell below 4000 pts level, which now acts as major short term resistance. As long as price sits below the aforementioned level, a downward may deepen towards support at 3855 pts, which is marked with the lower limit of the wide 1:1 structure and 50% Fibonacci retracement. Source: xStation5