Stocks swoon as yields rise; NFP in focus

Summary:

• Stock markets slide as US yields hit highest since 2011

• Stock of the week: Intel

• USD pares earlier gains; GBP and EUR lead the bounce

• Oil pulls back from recent highs on output increase rumours

• Crypto markets rise; How much is blockchain worth?

The concerns surrounding a breakout in US yields has made some stock investors seemingly worried with some sizable selling seen in the US500, US100 and US30 after the TNOTE fell to its lowest level since 2011. With the recent moves in yields, the ongoing trade dispute with China, the poor performance of European markets and the crises surrounding the Emerging Markets space there’s plenty of reasons for calling a top in the US. Many traders know that standing in front of a runaway market isn’t a wise move and therefore they look for possible technical reversal signals which support their fundamental bias. Wednesday’s declines later session may well have thrown up one of these with an inverted hammer of sorts printed on the D1 US30 chart.

A number of reports boosted sentiment towards Intel (INTC.US) in the past couple of days after the stock found itself under pressure earlier this year. The company may be on its way to tackle supply and production problems it has encountered recently. In this analysis we take a look at reasons why sentiment improved, the latest earnings report as well as compare Intel with its major peer in the CPU industry.

The strong break higher in US yields is dominating today’s trade and had provided a boost to the US dollar although, the buck has since pared those gains somewhat. The USDIDX hit a 6-week high not far from the 96.00 handle but has since experience a fairly sharp pullback. The heatmap on xStation reveals that the greenback is still higher against most of its peers, but its is perhaps telling that its 3 most widely crosses (EUR, JPY and GBP) are now showing declines on the day. Two USD pairs in particular are attracting focus with the GBPUSD and EURUSD both showing signs that they are trying to bounce after the recent declines.

The US State Department issued a statement at night asking OPEC cartel to boost production to help tackle high prices on the oil market. Khalid Al-Falih, the Saudi Energy Minister, told reporters on Thursday morning that the cartel is ready to fully utilize its spare capacity of 1.3 mb per day in case it was needed. Oil prices began downward move following remarks.

There’s some gains seen in the crypto space today with 4 of the 5 markets moving higher. Dash iss the odd one out and even though it is lower it is only by 0.6% while Ethereum is the biggest gainer and higher by around 3.5% at the time of writing. Bank of America’s research analysts let’s notice that their estimates suggested that the blockchain market could be eventually worth $7 billion but they did not set a particular timeline for the market growth. What are assumptions to these predictions? The most important one suggests that as much as 2% of servers globally will one day be used to run blockchain.