- Wall Street indices gained yesterday, erasing the majority of post-FOMC losses. S&P 500 gained 1.25%, Dow Jones moved 0.97% higher, Nasdaq added 1.30% and small-cap Russell 2000 jumped almost 1.4% higher
- US index futures added to gains after close of the cash session, driven by strong results from Amazon and Meta Platforms
- Indices from Asia-Pacific traded mostly higher, following an upbeat session on Wall Street. S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.5%, Kospi traded 1.2% higher and Nifty 50 rallied 1.8%. Nikkei traded 0.3%
- Indices from China are regional laggards today, with some major indices from the country dropping 2-3%. Interestingly, there was no news to justify the drop
- European index futures point to a higher opening of the cash session on the Old Continent today
- US officials said that decision on how to respond to a recent drone strike in Jordan was made and that its forces are preparing to hit targets in Syria and Iraq
- Qatari officials said that no ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas yet, in spite of conflicting media reports. Al Jazeera tweeted yesterday that Israel agreed to a ceasefire proposal, but that tweet was quickly deleted
- Societe Generale expects Bank of Japan to end period of negative rates and hiked policy rate to 0.00% at March meeting
- Bank of America now expects Federal Reserve to begin cutting rates in June
- South Korean CPI inflation for January came in at 2.8% YoY (exp. 2.9% YoY), the lowest pace of price growth since July 2023. Core CPI slowed from 2.8% YoY to 2.5% YoY and reached the lowest pace since December 2021
- Australian PPI inflation for Q4 2023 came in at 0.9% QoQ (exp. 1.9% QoQ)
- Cryptocurrencies trade higher this morning - Bitcoin gains 0.6%, Ethereum trades 0.5% higher and Dogecoin advances 0.7%
- Energy commodities trade higher - oil gains 0.3% while US natural gas prices advance 0.8%
- Precious metals trade little changed - gold trades flat, silver drops 0.1% and platinum adds 0.1%
- AUD and NZD are the best performing G10 currencies while CHF and JPY lag the most
S&P 500 futures (US500) have fully recovered from post-FOMC slump and managed to reach fresh all-time highs above 4,955 pts mark. Source: xStation5
