Morning wrap (26.04.2023)

• Asia-Pacific indices were trading at mixed levels at the start of Tuesday's trading session. Japan's Nikkei lost close to 0.65%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 traded marginally above yesterday's closing levels and India's Nifty 50 was down nearly 0.1%. China's Hang Seng and China A50 indices also recorded gains on a daily basis.

• The DAX and S&P 500 index contracts traded slightly higher

• Uncertainty in the banking sector was newly fuelled by very weak financial results reported by First Republic Bank, whose shares lost more than 45% yesterday.

• In the technology company sector, sentiment was improved by better-than-expected quarterly results from Microsoft and Alphabet. Investor attention turned particularly towards Microsoft, which managed to report results above the upper end of analysts' expectations. The company reported a big jump in revenue from its Intelligent Cloud business segment, which lifted the company's shares by more than 8% at the close of the Wall Street session.  Alphabet also reported better-than-expected revenue and posted a profit from its Cloud business for the first time ever. Shares gained more than 2% in the market after the close of US trading.

• Australia's headline CPI came in at 1.4% QoQ in Q1 2023 (versus expectations of 1.3%). However, the AUDUSD pair saw declines, dictated by a lower core inflation reading (1.2% quarter-on-quarter versus expectations of 1.4%)

• Rating agency Fitch communicated that the European Central Bank is likely to accelerate the pace of quantitative tightening (QT).

• The cryptocurrency market is seeing modest gains. Bitcoin gains 0.55%, Ethereum loses 0.05% and Dogecoin is trading 0.77% higher.

• JPY and GBP are the strongest of the G10 currencies, while AUD and NZD are performing the weakest.

• The major precious metals are trading at mixed levels early in the session, with silver gaining 0.05% and gold losing 0.03%. Platinum and palladium are doing much better, gaining close to 0.7% at the moment. 

• The energy commodities market is dominated by gains, with WTI crude oil gaining 0.8% and US gas prices rising 0.6%.

Heatmap on the FX market showing the volatility on each currency pair at the moment. Source: xStation 5