Headlines:
- Shanghai says completed city-wide COVID-19 testing drive, reviewing results
- Twitter jumps 27% in pre-market as Elon Musk takes on passive stake in the company
- Euro drags its feet to kick start the week
- Moscow keeps mum about status of peace talks
- Eurozone April Sentix investor confidence -18.0 vs -9.2 expected
- LME introduces 15% daily price limits for all metals after nickel fiasco
- SNB total sight deposits w.e. 1 April CHF 737.2 bn vs CHF 731.5 bn prior
- Germany February trade balance €11.5 billion vs €9.6 billion expected
Markets:
- NZD leads, EUR lags on the day
- European equities mixed; S&P 500 futures up 0.1%
- US 10-year yields up 0.7 bps to 2.382%
- Gold up 0.3% to $1,929.60
- WTI up 1.2% to $100.40
- Bitcoin flat at $46,140
It has been a quiet start to the new week though there were some light movements in European morning trade.
The bond selloff continued but eased as the session progressed with 2-year Treasury yields having hit 2.50% earlier in the day - its highest since early 2019 - before slipping back to 2.42% currently.
Equities were mixed and little changed overall, keeping steadier after the gains on Friday.
In FX, the yen held slightly softer but it was the euro that was dragged lower during the session. EUR/USD fell from 1.1040 to 1.1000 with sellers trying to push the momentum back under the figure level for the time being. There are modest-sized expiries around 1.1000-10 so that could factor into the push and pull in price action today.
Besides that, commodity currencies held a slight advance with AUD/USD testing waters above 0.7500 again but the gains are nothing to really shout about.
All in all, the market is just settling into the new month/quarter as the main focus continues to be on the battle between central banks and inflation and also in part the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
