Markets:
- Gold down $5 to $1786
- S&P 500 futures up 12 points to 4435
- US 10-year yields up 1.3 bps to 1.79%
- WTI crude oil up $1.07 to $87.90
- Hong Kong Hang Seng up 1.1%
- NZD leads, JPY lags
The week kicked off the same way Friday ended: With a positive tone. This time, moreso in FX than equities as the Australian and New Zealand dollars led the way.
A heavy holiday slate due to the lunar new year and a holiday in New Zealand took much of the life out of the market but there were still decent moves with AUD/USD rebounding from a 20-month low and back above 0.7000.
The bigger moves were in yen crosses as they universally marched higher despite Japanese 2-year yields rising to -0.05%, which is the highest since 2016.
Energy continues to be red hot as WTI opened a dollar higher and Brent hit $91. The larger move was in natural gas, which ran nearly 10% before paring the gain back to 7% on cold weather forecasts.
The weekend news had little effect on the market but I’ll be watching closely to see how Bostic’s comments are digested.