Forex news for North American trading on December 9, 2020.
- NASDAQ has its worst day since October 30
- Seventeen states file brief at Supreme Court supporting bid by Texas
- US crude oil futures settle at $45.52
- FTC sues Facebook for illegal monopolization
- California reports record 30,851 new virus cases
- Gold has taken another step lower. Trades down near 2% on the day
- US CDC Covid cases rise to 217,046 vs. 186,215 yesterday
- US treasury auctions off $38 billion of 10 year notes at a high yield of 0.951%
- Major European indices close mixed for the 2nd consecutive day
- France's Beaune: Brexit deal is still possible, we are working on it, but still far apart
- Crude oil inventories for December 4 week 15.189M vs -1.035M estimate
- Senate Majority Leader McConnell: Still looking for a way forward
- Bank of Canada keeps rates unchanged as expected
- US wholesale inventories rise by 1.1% vs. 0.9% preliminary
- JOLTS job openings 6652 vs. 6300 estimate
- EU McGuinness: Not very confident on a Brexit deal
- The AUD is the strongest and the CHF is the weakest as NA traders enter for the day
A look at other markets outside the forex shows
- Spot gold fell sharply by $31.50 or -1.68% to $1839.07. The low for the day reached $1825.81. The high for the day was up at $1870.72.
- Spot silver fell $0.61 or -2.49% to $23.94. The high price reached $24.58. The low price extended to $23.59
- Bitcoin on Coinbase is trading down $316 and $18,455. The low price reached $17,639. The high price was up at $18,838.51
It would be remiss to not make the tops news headline for the day that the weekly crude oil inventories surged by 15.189M barrels. The expectations were for a drawdown of -1.035M. That is quite a miss.
The huge build was the largest since April (in the midst of big swings from the pandemic), and brought the national stockpile back to the highest level since August.
According to sources, part of the glut can be explained by the largest decline on record of crude exports, which may be in part due to closures at Houston ship Channel due to bad weather. Lower gasoline demand also sent the gasoline stocks up 4.22M barrels which was more than twice the expected build.
The sharp increase in inventories sent the price of crude oil lower, with the low price for the day reaching $44.95. That level stalled against day upward sloping trendline on the hourly chart (click here for post). Holding support, turn to sellers and buyers and through all the volatility, the price for WTI crude oil futures are trading near unchanged at $45.60. The high price for the day was still up at $46.24.
Other news today saw wholesale inventories in the US rise by 1.1%. Wholesale trade sales or also better-than-expected at 1.8%.
The JOLTS job openings came in better-than-expected 6.652m vs 6.300M, but the data is a bit old (for October).
Overall economic data in the US was positive for the day.
In Canada, the Bank of Canada kept rates unchanged at 0.25% and said that he would continue at C$4B and rates would likely stay unchanged through 2023.
On Capitol Hill, the Dems and GOP continue to bicker over covid stimulus. Case count rose by 217 K with deaths back above 2.5K.
In the EU/UK, the Brexit negotiations continue, but there was more of a tilt to the no-deal side today as the clock continues to tick.
In the forex, the AUD is ending the day as the strongest of the majors. The NZD is the weakest. The USD is ending mixed with gains vs. the EUR and NZD, and declines vs the GBP and AUD. The USDJPY, USDCHF and USDCAD are all ending the session near unchanged.
The stock market lost some of its luster today - sort of. There was the Doordash IPO which was priced at $102 (Up from $75 last week) but opened at $182. It close at $190 up 86% on the day. The not so good was at the NASDAQ index at its worst day since October 30 and broke its 4 day win streak (and 3 day all time new high streak). The S&P index at its worst day in 3 weeks. Those declines came after all three indices traded to new all-time session highs intraday.
The European shares closed mixed with France and Italy lower. Germany and Portugal were higher. UK and Spain close near unchanged. Below is a graphic showing the percentage closes and the percent highs and lows for the major North American and European indices.
The US treasury completed the 2nd leg of the auction calendar today (with the 30 year bond being the last tomorow) with the sale of $38 billion of 10 year notes. The auction was blah for the 2nd day in a row with a 0.4 bp tail to the WI level and the bid to cover was lower than the six-month average. A bit sloppy.
Tomorrow the ECB will have their final interest rate decision. No change is expected. Lagarde will conduct a press conference at 8:30 AM ET. US CPI will be released along with the weekly initial jobless claims data at 8:30 AM as well.
