- Wall Street indices traded lower today, with tech sector leading sell-off. S&P 500 and Dow Jones drop 0.5%, while Nasdaq trades 0.8% lower. Small-cap Russell 2000 is an outperformer today with 0.4% gain at press time
- European stock markets indices finished today's trading mixed - German DAX dropped 0.08%, French CAC40 gained 0.04%, UK FTSE 100 moved 0.20% lower, Dutch AEX slumped 0.81% and Spanish IBEX jumped 1.02%
- EUR and CHF are the best performing G10 currencies, while NZD and JPY lag the most
- Bitcoin pullback extended into second day with the most famous cryptocurrency dropping around 5% to $68,000 area
- Cocoa futures jumped above $8,000 per tonne today, extending month-to-date gain to over 30%
- Copper futures climbed above $9,000 per tonne for the first time in 11 months
- US natural gas prices erased yesterday's gains after Bloomberg reported that gas prices for next-day delivery at Waha hub in US Permian Basin dropped to negative levels amid booming production and low demand
- Japanese Rengo union announced that wage hike negotiated during this year's annual talks hit 5.28%, up from 3.80% last year. Base pay will increase 3.70%, up from 2.33% last year
- This year's wage hikes in Japan are the largest in over 30 years, greatly boosting chances that Bank of Japan will decide to end negative interest rate at the meeting next week
- University of Michigan (UoM) Consumer Sentiment index dropped from 76.9 to 76.5 in March, with Current Conditions subindex staying unchanged at 79.4 (exp. 79.7) and Expectations subindex dropping from 75.2 to 74.6 (exp. 75.1)
- 1-year inflation expectations according to UoM stayed unchanged at 3.0% (exp. 3.1%) while 5-year inflation expectations stayed unchanged at 2.9% (exp. 2.9%)
- Final French CPI inflation data showed a 3.0% YoY price growth in February, slightly higher than 2.9% YoY suggested by flash reading
- New York Fed manufacturing index dropped from -2.4 to -20.9 in March (exp. -7.0)
- Canada housing starts for February came in at 253.5k (exp. 229k)
- US industrial production increased 0.1% MoM in February (exp. 0.0% MoM), while manufacturing production increased 0.8% MoM (exp. 0.3% MoM)
Japanese yen is pulling back today in spite of unions announcing biggest wage hikes in decades. Those hikes are already priced-in and now market awaits BoJ meeting next week. USDJPY climbs to 149.00 today and tests 50-session moving average (green line). Source: xStation5
