Daily Summary: Wall Street consolidates. Cotton futures surges 4%

The Chinese Hang Seng index gained nearly 1% today, with the Asian session closing in a positive mood. During the European session, we observed a continuation of gains, with DAX up by 0.7% and CAC40 by 0.2%.

CPI data from Japan indicated a slowdown in core CPI inflation from 2.3% to 2.0% year-on-year, while economists expected a slowdown to 1.8% year-on-year. The main CPI inflation slowed from 2.6% to 2.2% year-on-year (1.9% was expected).

Today's session on Wall Street brings limited volatility as traders await key macro readings in the second part of the week, including the Fed's preferred US PCE inflation and global manufacturing PMI readings.

Key US benchmarks Nasdaq100 and S&P 500 lose 0.1% and 0.18% respectively. Dow Jones loses 0.4%, but Russell 2000 surges as much as 1.2%, signaling a still higher risk appetite on Wall Street.

Weaker US macro readings put pressure on the US dollar and 10-year treasury yields. However, the USDIDX slightly loses ground considering the weaker-than-expected US economic readings.

Orders for durable goods in January (-6.1% month-on-month vs. 4.5% forecast) and the consumer sentiment reading from the Conference Board (106.7 vs. 115 forecast and 110.9 previously) turned out lower than forecasts.

Regional Richmond Fed data turned out much better than expected, with a reading of -5 compared to the expected -9 and -15 previously.

Among the gaining American companies, lithium producers stand out, supported by recent comments from Pilbara Minerals. The Australian company indicated it is observing higher demand reported among customers; the market is also discounting information about the shutdown of lithium production by Chinese companies, which are closing factories due to low prices, reducing supply.

On the wave of successful quarterly results, we observe a significant increase in the shopping mall operator Macy’s and the airline Norwegian, which entered the new year with higher rates, record demand, and higher revenue forecasts.

Oil gains over 1.70% following news that OPEC+ is considering extending voluntary oil production cuts into the second quarter or even until the end of the year.

Bitcoin gains 4.60% to the level of 57000 USD, approaching its historical highs. Ethereum gains just over 1.80% to 3240 USD. Smaller cryptocurrency projects are recording significantly lower increases.

Gains in Bitcoin are again driven by positive inflows into ETFs, which totaled over 500 million dollars yesterday. At the same time, outflows from Grayscale continue to fall and are close to zero.