To us, the early part of US session feels unusually quiet. The kind of quiet likes “quiet before storm”. The markets do move in some ways. At the time of writing, Canadian Dollar is trading as the secondly strongest for today. Rise in oil price after larger than expected fall in US oil inventory is a factor. WTI crude oil is up 1.34% at 67.32. Euro and Swiss Franc are among the top three, mainly due to Dollar’s misery. Yen is the weakest one for today as the US stock markets display some resilience. Australian Dollar and Dollar follow as the next weakest.
US stocks markets are not too troubled by Trump’s problems. DOW is trading nearly flat and NASDAQ is actually up 0.4%. S&P 500 opens mildly lower but quickly reversed. Strictly speaking it’s fluctuating between gain and loss. Nevertheless, S&P 500 could still have another go at record high. European indices closed with slight gains with FTSE up 0.11%, DAX up 0.01% and CAC up 0.22%. Gold’s strength was revived by Dollar selling and breached 1200 to 1201.58. But it continues to lose upside momentum.
Fed minutes will be a focus for the rest of the session, US-China trade talks too. But US politics will be the mostly watched topic. Trump’s ex-personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations, and said he acted at the direction of Trump. Further than that, Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said Cohen is willing to tell Mueller about the possibility of Trump’s collusion and corruption to the American democracy system in 2016 elections. In a Bloomberg TV interviewed, Davis added that “there is most certainly enough evidence” for the Congress to open a probe. Political reality shows are usually boring… but not this episode.
