The USD is mixed
As North American traders enter for the day the CHF is the strongest and the AUD is the weakest of the major currency pairs. The USD is mixed ahead of a speech by Fed's Powell later today, with gains vs the GBP and AUD and declines vs the EUR, JPY, CAD and CHF. The NZD is unchanged in the morning snapshot. The RBA kept rates unchanged, but expectations are for a cut going forward which has sent the AUD lower. The GBP is also lower on a report that the EU might look to ignore the October 15 deadline and test PM Johnson on walking away with no deal. Pres. Trump is out of the hospital and tweeting (time will tell).
The ranges and changes show price action in the GBPUSD and the AUDUSD (as noted above). The other pairs vs the USD have very modest ranges of 34 pips (for the EURUSD and NZDUSD) to 24 pips (for the USDCHF). That is not a lot of movement for this time in the day. The JPY pairs are mostly near unchanged - to down - as the "risk on" trade from yesterday cools. The AUDJPY and GBPJPY are following lower with the overall bearish trends for those currency pairs.
A snapshot of other markets currently shows:
- Spot gold is trading up $0.50 or 0.03% at $1914.18
- Spot silver is up unchanged at $24.37
- WTI crude oil futures trading up $0.91 or 2.32% and back above the $40 level at $40.13
In the premarket for US stocks, the futures markets are mixed after the oversized gains from yesterday (NASDAQ up 2.32%, S&P up 1.8%, Dow up 1.68%);
- The Dow Jones up 76 points
- S&P index is down -2.5 points
- NASDAQ is near unchanged after being lower earlier
In the European equity markets, the major indices are higher with mixed results for the 2nd consecutive day this week:
- German DAX, +0.6%
- France's CAC, +0.5%
- UK's FTSE 100, +0.1%
- Spain's Ibex, +1.3%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.1%
In the US debt market, the snapshot of yields are showing modest changes after the sharp run-up yesterday. The yield curve is marginally higher as well (as measured by the 2 – 10 year spread) after spiking higher yesterday to 63.7 basis points. It currently is at 64.06 basis points
In the European debt market, the benchmark 10 year yields are mixed with modest changes:
