อ่านเพิ่มเติมเกี่ยวกับ RADEX MARKETS
Markets are caught in the iron grip of fear. The narrative being spread around the watercooler is that the United States is facing a possible recession. US indices have suffered greatly over the past few weeks, pushing the Nasdaq Composite into correction and the S&P 500 to within a hair’s breadth of one yesterday. In comparison, the Dow is down a modest 8% from recent highs. To add insult to injury, the Dollar has been on a one-way path to oblivion since the start of the year, falling almost 5% year-to-date. The week is once again off to a bad start for US markets. Stocks have already made significant steps down over the last two sessions and while the Greenback managed to close flat on Monday, the fall continued yesterday, resulting in another 0.5% loss in the Dollar currency index. Gold capitalised on the weakness in the Dollar, climbing 0.9% to $2,915 an ounce by yesterday’s close. Silver also made a decent move, reaching up to within touching of distance of $33. Crude oil prices are still facing the grim reality of poor economic growth forecasts and as such, remain heavily subdued. Try as it might, Brent Crude cannot seem to hold onto $70, while WTI languishes around $66 a barrel. An interesting event occurred in the crypto markets yesterday. The recent financial rout has been particularly scathing for Bitcoin, pushing digital gold from highs of $109k in January down to just $76,600 on Tuesday. The noteworthy point about yesterday’s dump is that it fills the CME futures gap left behind in early November. The significance of this is up for debate, but such occurrences are indeed meaningful for many traders out there. Bitcoin went on to reach $83k following the move. The latest round of US inflation data is set to hit markets a few hours from now. The month-on-month rate is expected to come in at 0.3% and the yearly at 2.9%. Strong deviations from the above may set a cat among the pigeons with regards to trading conditions. The Bank of Canada will announce the latest interest rate decision shortly after, with a 25-bps cut thoroughly priced in.
Last Friday’s NFP release came with few surprises. The revealed headline figure of 151k did little to raise eyebrows, falling just shy of expectations of 160k new jobs. Unemployment ticked up to 4.1% in February, a slight bump from the previous month but nothing earth shattering. Interestingly, government employment declined by 10,000 jobs in February, which commentators on both sides are already claiming is the work of the newly established Department Of Government Efficiency. The stock market clawed back some of its losses following the publication but the week was essentially a write-off as far as US indices were concerned. The Dollar extended its losses on Friday but did so somewhat more reluctantly than on previous days. The DXY closed the week at 103.9, which coincidentally is exactly where it opened on Election Day back in November 2024. Nothing ever happens. The uncertainty surrounding trade tariffs has negatively affected the Greenback since the new regime took office, with significant Dollar outflows heading to the Euro, Pound and Yen. The last two sessions however saw an uptick in interest in the Swiss Franc, which reached highs of $1.14 on Friday. Crypto markets were given more information regarding the US strategic Bitcoin reserve late last week. The reserve would initially be “capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings” according to crypto czar David Sacks. The announcement implies that the US government will merely sit on the assets already under its control, with no intention of actively adding to the stockpile. Crypto markets took the news badly, with Bitcoin falling 3.5% on Friday and continuing to dribble all the way down to $80,000 over the course of the weekend. Traders will have a mellow start to the week, at least if the economic calendar is to be believed. A barren Monday gives way to more US labour data on Tuesday, this time in the form of the latest JOLT survey. Wednesday stirs things up with an interest rate decision courtesy of the Bank of Canada, which is predicted to lower rates on the Loonie to 2.75% from 3% currently. US CPI figures also grace the calendar on Wednesday, followed by their PPI counterpart on Thursday. UK GDP data closes out the week on Friday. Should this week turn out to be anything like the previous, traders would do well to keep their wits about them.
The Dollar’s slide into the abyss finally stalled yesterday after three consecutive days of harrowing losses. The DXY is down over 3% since the start of this week, mostly driven by tariff uncertainty and a loss of confidence in the US economy. Wednesday’s ADP employment report did nothing to restore confidence in the US labour market, indicating just 77k new jobs instead of the predicted figure of 140k. The ADP numbers are a precursor to Non-Farm Payrolls later today, which are predicted to announce 160k new jobs and a 4% unemployment rate in February. Whether or not the selloff in the Greenback will continue will at least partially depend on how far the actual figures diverge from expectations. In a strongly telegraphed move, the ECB lowered deposit rates on the Euro from 2.75% to 2.5% yesterday. More interestingly, the central bank made it clear that monetary policy would become “meaningfully less restrictive” in the future. Growth in the Eurozone has been lacklustre to put it mildly, but recently European governments are facing the added pressure of a sustained selloff in bond markets, meaning it is becoming more expensive for states to borrow money. Yields on the German 10-year bond in particular spiked 30-bps on Wednesday, the sharpest daily jump since 1990. The back and forth with regards to tariffs has injected fear into bond markets around the world, extending all the way to Japan, which is seeing some of the highest yields in over 15 years. The financial landscape is mired in uncertainty. For all the question marks surrounding future trade tariffs, they pale in comparison to those relating to cryptocurrencies. The new administration is evidently more supportive of the industry than its predecessor was, but the lack of concrete details is beginning to fatigue some investors. Crypto traders probably have whiplash from this week’s erratic price action, in which Bitcoin seesawed between $95k and $81k with very little explanation as to why. Talks of a strategic crypto reserve are dominating the newswires but once again, nothing has been clearly delineated as of yet.
The long-threatened tariffs against Chinese, Canadian and Mexican goods finally came into effect on Tuesday. Despite the threat of such tariffs being a major driver in the Dollar’s strength since Election Day, the Greenback has seen significant back-to-back losses so far this week. Perhaps a “buy the news – sell the event” kind of response, or perhaps investors are beginning to rebalance the underlying fundamentals of the world’s largest economy. The latest round of US manufacturing data came in lower than expected on Monday but more worryingly, the report also revealed drops in new orders and employment. US stock indices have had a rough time of it so far this week, with all three majors getting hammered to the downside over the last two sessions. Investors may justify such movements however they please, but the fact is that there are clear outflows from the Dollar, allowing the Euro in particular to do some much needed catching up. The common currency remains near historical lows, but did manage to climb up to $1.06 yesterday for the first this year. A similar story for Cable, which stopped just shy of $1.28 on Tuesday. Weakness in the Dollar also helped to give gold a leg up early this week, with bullion prices rising to highs of $2,929 an ounce. Crude oil prices have absolutely no grounds for optimism in light of the current macro environment. Trade wars, the potential for weaker growth, not to mention planned production increases for OPEC+ members together all pushed crude to fresh yearly lows yesterday. Brent is now swapping hands for just $70 a barrel, while WTI is down to just $67. The oil cartel self-imposed a production cut of 5.85 million barrels per day back in 2022 in order to support markets, but elected to phase out such restrictions starting in April. The last couple of days have been anything but muted in terms of trading activity, and a glance at the economic calendar shows the week is far from over. Traders have an easy start with European services PMI data but things may ramp up with ADP employment numbers later in the day. Tomorrow, another 25-bps cut is pencilled-in for the Euro but the event everyone is waiting for is of course Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday. No rest for the wicked.
Any lingering doubts surrounding tariffs were scattered to the wind yesterday, as Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that such measures would indeed go ahead on the 4th of March. The Dollar welcomed the update with open arms, climbing 0.77% against the usual basket and registering its strongest day of the year so far. The rise in the Greenback was counterbalanced by a fall in gold, which sunk to $2,877 an ounce by yesterday’s close. US stock markets certainly felt the pressure during Thursday’s session. The Dow, being relatively isolated from the tech sector, escaped somewhat unscathed with a mere 0.45% drop. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Comp meanwhile faced losses of 1.6% and 2.8% respectively. The latest earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA) did nothing to help matters. The report was fairly balanced overall, but investors were not impressed by some of the forecasts within, leading to an 8.5% drop in the chipmaker’s share price. President Trump’s update on tariffs hit Asian markets hard this morning. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is down almost 3% at the time of writing. The Korean Kospi index is down by a similar amount. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index is also down by over 2% after hitting a record high just yesterday. Chinese goods are expected to be subject to additional 10% levies starting next week, but the new tariff structure is expected to affect countries far and wide. The carnage is currently extending to cryptocurrencies, which saw Bitcoin wick all the way down to $79k early this morning. This now represents a 25% fall from the all-time high established less than six weeks ago. A busy start to a potentially busy day. It will take a while for the dust to settle with regards to the new tariff regime and markets may feel a little jittery in light of recent developments. Traders will also have to contend with the release of the latest PCE Price Index once the US session opens later today. Eyes open.
The past couple of sessions saw a healthy dose of volatility reintroduced into markets as Donald Trump fielded the ever-growing question of trade tariffs. The president confirmed that tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods would proceed as planned, as would tariffs on imported steel and aluminium. Clarifications welcomed by some but deemed insufficient by others. Unexpectedly poor US consumer confidence threw another spanner into the works on Tuesday, leading to loses in tech stocks and piling pressure on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite. Nvidia is set to publish its latest earnings report later today, although the numbers will only come in after the bell. Trade uncertainty was as good a reason as any for larger investors to book some profits, particularly in precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Gold fell $37 yesterday after hitting a record high of $2,956 the day prior. Crude oil had a rough day as traders were forced to price in the prospect of lower demand and mounting stockpiles. Brent Crude is now down to $73 a barrel while WTI is clinging onto $69. The real bloodbath was in crypto however, with Bitcoin plummeting all the way down to $85k on Tuesday from highs of $96k during the weekend. Further down the crypto leaderboard, Ethereum faced the added problem of the recent Bybit hack, in which $1.5 billion worth of Eth was stolen from the platform’s cold wallets. CEO Ben Zhou has assured clients that all holdings remain backed 1:1 but as with any such security breach, investor confidence has been knocked. Monday’s selloff extended far and wide, with many projects experiencing double-digit losses. It will become more evident as the week progresses whether there is genuine fear in crypto markets or if this entire event was merely an excuse to flush out overleveraged longs. Many remain sceptical.
