- Markets are awaiting today’s policy meeting at the US Federal Reserve. It is strongly expected that the interest rate will be left at 5.50%, but the economic forecast and statement language will be watched carefully by analysts seeking to determine whether the end of the tightening cycle has been reached.
- US 10 and 5-Year Treasury Yields reached new 15-year highs as sentiment grows that US interest rates will need to stay higher for longer. This sentiment is also pushing most stock markets lower, and we see bearish price action in the major American indices such as the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500.
- The Forex market is seeing a slightly stronger US Dollar. Since the Tokyo open, the major currencies have barely moved. However, the US Dollar remains within a valid long-term bullish trend, keeping the USD/JPY currency pair in focus on the long side for trend traders.
- Yesterday saw Crude Oil fall in value after recently reaching a new 10-month high price, as markets showed fresh signs of tightness driven by OPEC supply cuts.
- Yesterday brought a release of Canadian CPI (inflation) data which showed a higher-than-expected month-on-month increase at 0.4%, when an increase of only 0.2% had been expected. However, the Canadian Dollar barely reacted to the data.
- There will be a release today of UK CPI (inflation) data, which is expected to show a small increase in the annualized rate, from 6.8% to 7.0%.
- There will be a release of New Zealand GDP data tomorrow, which is expected to show a small amount of growth over the previous month.
- Sugar futures rose yesterday to reach a new multi-year high price.