US bourses finished the week on a negative note, although clung to weekly gains during 2017’s first quadruple witching session. The Dow Jones and the S&P500 both closed 0.1% lower to maintain weekly gains despite Financials weighing on both indices, while the Nasdaq closed marginally higher.
An empty economic calendar this morning has left the door open for last week’s trading trends to creep in, with the pound the main beneficiary
Spreadex Analyst, Connor Campbell noted – “Cable rose 0.3% after the bell, crossing $1.24 to leave sterling at a 3 week high. The pound is caught between last week’s dovish hike from the Fed, the Bank of England’s non-unanimous rate vote, where Kristen Forbes signalled that she believes an increase is in order, and Tuesday’s inflation figure, which is set to cross the BoE’s long held 2.0% target. Yet this hawkish haze hasn’t helped sterling out as much against the euro as it has against the greenback, with the pound still having a way to go before it reclaims its end of February/start of March losses.”
The European equity markets started the week on a heavy risk-off sentiment after the G20 communiqué explicitly reflected the US intentions to establish trade protectionist measures.
LCG Analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya commented -“The FTSE 100 opened downbeat as Cable traded above the 100-day moving average. Mining and energy stocks lead losses on softer oil and commodity prices on fears that US protectionism could negatively impact the global demand. Iron ore cheapened 0.42%, copper wrote off 0.69%. Across the Channel, the DAX 30 (+0.10%) and the CAC 40 (-0.46%) opened under pressure as well.”
Ozkardeskaya also noted that cash flows this morning are into the safe haven assets of gold and the Japanese Yen.
