The USD/CAD currency pair traded yesterday at a new 4-month low price, with the Canadian Dollar gaining on rising Crude Oil prices.
- The USD/CAD currency pair fell to a new 4-month low yesterday, driven by rising prices of crude oil, which may be getting a tailwind from Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea area. At the time of writing the price is rebounding from this low even though the US Dollar is mostly weaker this morning after gaining yesterday.
- Stock markets mostly fell yesterday, even in the USA, where the NASDAQ 100 Index made a new record high, and the benchmark S&P 500 Index made a new 23-month high, earlier this week. However, stock markets are now recovering again. The bullish environment is caused partly by a weaker US Dollar and partly by a more dovish expectation of the Fed’s rate cuts in 2024.
- UK inflation data released yesterday showed a surprise fall to an annualized rate as low as 3.9% while the expectation was for 4.3%. This is seen as likely to cause the Bank of England to take a more dovish approach, and to implement rate cuts totalling 1% over the course of 2024.
- In the Forex market, since the Tokyo open, the Australian Dollar has been the strongest major currency, while the New Zealand has been the weakest, although the numbers are small enough to be mostly meaningless. There do not seem to be any valid long-term trends to exploit in this asset class right now, although with the US Dollar weakening again, eyes will be on EUR/USD to the long side if we get a daily close above the key resistance level at $1.1008.
- Crude Oil has continued to rise strongly after trading at a new 6-month low price, reaching a new 2-week high, due to attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi forces which have pushed major shipping companies to refuse to transit goods through the Red Sea. The USA is stating that it will put together a military operation to fully reopen the Red Sea to shipping traffic, which may temper this rise.
- Bitcoin seems to have found support at the level of $40,907 and is now rising firmly towards the recent long-term high above $44k. Trend traders will be interested here on the long side.
- Cocoa futures remain within a valid and very strong long-term uptrend and closed yesterday at a multi-year high. Trend traders will be interested here on the long side.
- There was a release yesterday of US CB Consumer Confidence data which came in meaningfully higher than expected, suggesting buoyancy within the US consumer economy.
- There will be releases today of:
- US Final GDP data, which is expected to show annualized economic growth of 5,2%.
- US Unemployment Claims data.