- Wall Street indices are erasing part of yesterday's post-CPI slump today. S&P 500 gains 0.5%, Dow Jones trades 0.1% higher, Nasdaq jumps 0.8% and small-cap Russell 2000 rallies 1.9%
- European indices traded higher today - German DAX gained 0.4%, UK FTSE 100 and French CAC40 rallied 0.7% while Dutch AEX added 0.1%. Polish WIG20 was today's European top performer with almost 2.1% gain
- Cryptocurrencies continue to gain - Bitcoin around 4% higher on the day and was testing the $52,000 area earlier today
- According to Politico report, Fed Chair Powell told House Democrats that a stablecoin bill is needed
- Sell-off on US natural gas market seems to have no end with NATGAS dropping another 3% today. US natural gas price trades near $1.60 per MMBTu and approaches 2020 lows
- Oil pulls back after huge inventory build - Brent drops 0.9% while WTI trades 1.5% lower
- DOE report showed a massive 12.02 million barrel build in US oil inventories (exp. +2.5 mb). Gasoline inventories declined 3.66 mb (exp. -1.1 mb) while distillate inventories dropped by 1.92 mb (exp. -1.5 mb)
- Precious metals gain - silver trades 1% higher, platinum adds 1.8% while gold trades flat. Palladium rallies over 7% supported by strong demand from ETFs
- AUD and NZD are the best performing major currencies while GBP and USD lag the most
- Nvidia surpassed Alphabet in terms of market capitalization and is now the third-largest US public company. Only Microsoft and Apple are bigger
- ECB Makhlouf said that the short-term outlook for the euro area is stagnation. Makhlouf said that ECB is confident in sustainably reaching the 2% goal
- Fed Goolsbee said that even if inflation comes in a bit higher over next few months, it would still be consistent with Fed's path back to the target
- BoE Governor Bailey said that this week's data does not really change our view of the February policy decision. However, he also said that services inflation is not compatible with 2% inflation
- Iraq said it has agreed with some OPEC members on new additional voluntary oil output cuts starting from January 2024
- UK CPI inflation data for January showed headline inflation staying unchanged at 4.0% YoY (exp. 4.2% YoY) and core inflation slowing from 5.2 to 4.9% YoY (exp. 5.1% YoY)
- Euro area GDP report for Q4 2023 confirmed stagnation (0.0% QoQ) suggested by preliminary release on January 30, 2024
- Euro area industrial production increased 2.6% MoM in December (exp. -0.2% MoM)
US natural gas prices (NATGAS) deepen ongoing sell-off with a 3% drop today. Price reached $1.60 per MMBTu area and is approaching 2020 lows ($1.50 area). Source: xStation5
