Treasuries and Wall Street rallied to kick off the last week of the month for what’s been a pretty bearish August. The same stands so far today. Rate hike fears amid a “higher for longer” policy stance, supply concerns, worries over spillover from slowing growth from China, mixed earnings, and fading AI enthusiasm helped knock bonds and stocks lower through August. But with yields having climbed to 16-year highs and much of the threat from still-hawkish monetary policy priced in, shorts covered and dip buyers emerged.
Treasury yields declined across tenors, with the 2-year dropping to slightly below 5%. The auctions of 2- and 5-year Treasury notes Monday drew the highest yields since before the 2008 financial crisis, a reflection of the US bond-market selloff that deepened last week in anticipation of another rate increase by the Federal Reserve. This is the first 5% handle and the highest award rate since July 2006.
This morning, the Japan unemployment rate for July came in higher than expected & German GfK consumer confidence dropped to the lowest level since May. Pessimists far outnumber optimists and the full breakdown, which is only available until August, showed that the assessment of income expectations deteriorated markedly. Not a positive report and the disappointing numbers tie in with the weakness in business confidence readings. Overall GDP growth is expected to contract this year and political headlines at home are not helping to lift the mood. The ECB seems to be expecting a soft landing though, so those numbers don’t necessarily mean that the ECB will pause next month, as the hawks seem to favor getting any additional hikes that may be needed out of the way.
- FX – USDIndex weakened against the G10 and dipped to 103.73 overnight, EURUSD spiked to 1.0837 (strong resistance area at 1.0840) , GBPUSD holds gains at 1.2617 and USDJPY sideways at 146.27-146.75. – Goldman sees Yen falling to 1990 levels if BOJ stays dovish!
- Stocks – The US100 advanced 0.84%, with the US500 up 0.63% on broadbased gains. Of note, this is the first back-to-back gain for August. The US30 was up 0.62%. NVDA +1.78%, Alphabet +0.87%, 3M +5.22%, GS +0.84%, DIS +0.96%, AAPL +0.88%, AMD +0.35%. European stocks made a positive start today, tracking positive momentum around the world.
- Commodities – USOil up by 0.35% to $79.55.
- Gold – rose 0.2% to $1,925.75.
- BTCUSD rose 0.3% to $26,054.53, ETHUSD rose 0.2% to $1,649.81.
Today: US Housing Price Index, Jolts & Consumer Confidence.
Interesting Mover: EURAUD (-0.26%) broke below 1.6800, with a bearish cross of 10- and 20-period EMA extending lower.
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Andria Pichidi
Market Analyst
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