No single trend in global equities ahead of US Retail Sales data

Dmitry Lukashov IFC Markets

Todays’ market summary

The Dollar weakening continues.
Futures on three main US stock indexes are mixed.
Brent is edging higher.
Gold prices are rebounding.

Top daily news

Equity index futures are mixed currently ahead of US retail sales report today at 14:30 CET following a retreat on Wall Street Thursday. Facebook shares lost 2.03% underperforming market ahead of reports today Meta is being sued for £2.3bn in a class action lawsuit that claims 44 million Facebook users in the UK had their data exploited after signing up to the social network, Apple stock lost 1.9% Thursday.

Forex news

Currency Pair	Change
EURUSD	+0.07%
GBPUSD	+0.12%
USDJPY	-0.38%

The Dollar weakening continues currently. The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, slipped 0.1% Thursday after the US Labor Department report above-forecast 230 thousand Americans sought unemployment benefits over the last week, up from 207 thousand the previous week.

Both EUR/USD and GBP/USD continued their climbing yesterday. Both Pound and euro are higher against the Dollar currently. AUD/USD joined USD/JPY’s continued sliding yesterday with both the yen and Australian dollar higher against Greenback currently.

Stock market news

Indices	Change
Dow Jones Index	+0.03%
Nikkei Index	-1.21%
Hang Seng Index	-0.59%
Australian Stock Index	-0.33%

Futures on three main US stock indexes are mixed currently with US 10-year Treasury note yields down at 1.766%. US stock market resumed retreating Thursday as Fed Governor Lael Brainard signaled that rates will rise in March to combat inflation while wholesale prices inflation hit a new 12-month record in December. The three main US stock benchmarks recorded daily losses in the range of 0.5% to 2.5% led by tech stocks.

European stock indexes are mixed currently after closing lower Thursday led by household goods shares. Asian indexes are mostly retreating today led by Nikkei as data showed Japan's wholesale inflation accelerated to 8.5% over year in December, the second fastest pace on record.

Commodity market news

Commodities	Change
Brent Crude Oil	+0.79%
WTI Crude	+0.73%

Brent is edging higher. Prices ended lower yesterday after the US Energy Information Administration on Wednesday indicating total domestic crude oil inventories fell 4.8 million barrels last week but this decline was more than offset by a stock build across refined products. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) ended down 0.6% but is higher currently. Brent crude lost 0.2% to $84.47 a barrel on Thursday.

Gold market news

Metals	Change
Gold	+0.26%

Gold prices are rebounding today. February gold slid 0.3% closing at $1821.40 Thursday, recording the first daily drop in five sessions.

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Author

Dmitry Lukashov

IFC Markets

Dimtry Lukashov is the senior analyst of IFC Markets. He started his professional career in the financial market as a trader interested in stocks and obligations.

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