Daily summary: Pullback in natural gas and precious metals markets

6:48 PM 22 August 2024
  • European indexes recorded a mixed session today. They mostly remained suspended around the previous session's closing prices. On the European map, only the German DAX stood out strongest, rising 0.2% today. 
  • On Wall Street, however, declines dominate. The Nasdaq is currently losing more than 1.3%, the S&P500 nearly 0.83% and the Russell 2000 0.95%. The market's pullback is largely due to the strong dollar and the rise in yields on US 10-year notes.
  • Precious metals contracts are seeing strong declines in the market today. Gold is currently losing nearly 1.2% and is struggling to hold the zone of recent highs, which was pierced on August 16. Silver is falling back to $29 levels after rebounding from a consolidation zone around $29.665.
  • U.S. natural gas-based contracts are losing more than 6% today after weekly EIA data indicated a larger gain in crude inventories than expected. The weekly change was +35 bcf versus the expected +25 bcf and an earlier reading of -6 bcf. Moreover, the latest data indicate that overall gas/electricity demand in the United States declined.
  • In the context of individual listed companies, investors' attention turns to Peloton, Snowflake, Zoom Video Communications and Advance Auto Parts.
  • From the US economy, we learned mixed PMI data today. The reading for services surprised positively with a higher reading, however, the data for manufacturing fell harder than expected. 
  • ECB minutes indicated that the bank's next meeting in September is widely seen as a good time to assess the tightness of monetary policy in the eurozone. The short-term outlook has become slightly more “stagflationary” in the assessment of ECB bankers.
  • The currency market is dominated by the US dollar and the Swiss franc. It is these currencies that are gaining most strongly at the moment. On the other hand, the Japanese yen and the Australian dollar are quoted under downward pressure. 
  • The crypto market is dominated by declines. Bitcoin is currently losing 1.4%, and Ethereum is losing nearly 1.1%. 
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