The headline US durable goods orders report was stronger than expected with a 1.8% increase for January, but the figure was inflated by aircraft orders and underlying sales declined 0.2% on the month following a revised 0.9% gain for January. Pending home sales data was weaker than expected with a 2.8% decline for January which pushed annual growth to 12- month lows. The Euro rallied to highs around 1.0630 after the US data as the dollar faded slightly.
Dallas Fed President Kaplan stated that the Fed should increase interest rates in the near future which helped boost speculation of a rate hike in March with futures markets indicating the chances of a move had increased to around 50%. The shift helped underpin the dollar and the Euro retreated below 1.0600 and held just below this level on Tuesday.
OBR: Oops, Budget Released Traders who might have been out grabbing a coffee ahead of the planned publication of the UK budget yesterday afternoon would have returned to chaos. Reuters, a popular financial news agency, revealed that although not directly discoverable via a link on their website, the OBR had published its report on Chancellor […]
Back in business? Tomorrow will mark one week since the President’s signature was provided to end the longest US government shutdown in history. It is not uncommon for the legacy of a shutdown to drag on beyond its formal conclusion date because it can naturally take differing amounts of time for different departments to get […]
A risky ‘risk-on’ The theme of this week is undoubtedly the risk-on rally caused by reported progress on a Russia-Ukraine peace deal. As always with market moves driven by this topic, the details are opaque and at a time where progress is claimed, bombs continue to fall on Kyiv. Optimism comes from speculation that Ukrainian […]