- Wall Street indices recovered from earlier losses and are now trading higher on the day
- S&P 500 and Dow Jones gain 0.1% each, Nasdaq trades 0.3% higher while small-cap Russell 2000 jumps 0.8%
- US equities were supported by strong US data released this afternoon - Conference Board index for December and existing home sales data for November
- Conference Board consumer confidence index jumped from 102. to 110.7 in December, the highest level since July 2023 reading, while the market expected an increase to just 104.0. Expectations subindex climbed from 77.8 to 85.6 while Present Situation subindex jumped from 138.2 to 148.5
- US existing home sales came in at 3.82 million for November (exp. 3.78 million). This was a 0.8% MoM increase instead of an expected -0.4% MoM drop
- European stock market indices are traded mixed today - German DAX dropped 0.1%, French CAC40 gained 0.1%, Dutch AEX moved 0.2% higher and Spanish IBEX dropped 0.1%. UK FTSE 100 jumped 1%, supported by post-CPI weakness in GBP
- UK CPI inflation decelerated from 4.6 to 3.9% YoY in November (exp. 4.4% YoY) while core CPI inflation decelerated from 5.7 to 5.1% YoY (exp. 5.6% YoY)
- Oil traded as much as 1.5% higher earlier today, with Brent trading at 3-week high above $80 per barrel. However, those gains have been erased and now oil is down 0.2% on the day
- Official US report showed a 2.91 million barrel increase in oil inventories (exp. -2.2 mb), gasoline inventories increased by 2.71 million barrels (exp. +1.7 mb), while distillate inventories increased by 1.48 million barrels (exp. 1.0 mb)
- German PPI inflation moved from -11% YoY to -7.9% YoY in November (exp. -7.5% YoY)
- Japanese exports dropped 0.2% YoY in November (exp. +1.5% YoY) while imports slumped 11.9% YoY (exp. -8.6% YoY)
- Cryptocurrencies traded higher today. Bitcoin gains over 4% and trades above $44,000 handle - a touch below local highs from early-December
- Precious metals trade mixed today - gold drops 0.2%, silver gains 1.2%, platinum trades 1.3% higher while palladium declines 1.2%
- NZD and CAD are the best performing G10 currencies, while GBP and EUR lag the most
Conference Board consumer confidence index surged from 101 to 110.7 in December, driven by improvements in Present Situation and Expectations subindices. Source: Bloomberg Finance LP, XTB
