TradeTheNews.com Staff
TradeTheNews.com
EU Market Update: Easter Monday keeps markets subdued; EUR/USD holds above 1.38
Notes/Observations
- Easter Monday holiday in Europe keeps participation at a minimum.
- (JP) Japan continues to register trade deficits. Japan trade deficit for FY13/14 at $14B (quadrupled from year ago levels due to due to higher imports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas)
- (UK) UK Chancellor Osborne may give modest tax cuts leading up to next years elections, which could be worth up to £7.0B due to recovery in UK - Telegraph
- (GR) Greece tourism spending from Jan-Feb €294M, +17.3% y/y - Greek press
- (CN) China Qinhuangdao coal price flat w/w at CNY525-535/t (remains at multi-month low)
Equities
- Major equity markets across Europe including Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland were closed for the Easter Monday holiday. Russia is only on major European market open today. The MICEX index is lower by 0.6%, giving back some of the large gains it made on Friday as tensions in Ukraine remain high amid sporadic gunfights over the weekend near Slaviansk. Tata Consultancy is relatively unchanged on the session after agreeing to combine their IT services unit with Mitsubishi Corp. US markets are set to re-open today after being closed for Good Friday, S&P 500 futures are higher by +0.2%.
Currencies/Fixed Income:
- USD majors largely remained in narrow holiday ranges. EUR/USD holding above 1.38. USD/JPY hits 2-week high above ¥102.60 during the Asian session after wider than expected trade deficit in Japan.
- Spot Gold moved off at 2-week lows of $1,281/oz.
Economic Data
- (JP) Japan Mar Supermarket Sales Y/Y: 9.4% v 1.5% prior
- (JP) Japan Mar Convenience Store Sales Y/Y: 2.9% v 1.0% prior
- (TW) Taiwan Mar Export Orders Y/Y: 5.9% v 4.7%e
- (ES) Spain Feb Bad loans ratio 13.4% v 13.5% prior
Looking Ahead
All times listed for economic events are denominated in Eastern Standard Time (Add 4 hours for GMT equivalent)
- 08:30 (US) Mar Chicago Fed National Activity Index: 0.20e v 0.14 prior
- 10:00 (US) Mar Leading Index: 0.7%e v 0.5% prior
- 11:00 (US) Fed to purchase $3.25-4.00B in Notes
- 11:30 (US) Treasury to sell combined $48B in 3-Month and 6-Month Bills
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