Markets continue to price in the possibility of an initial rate cut by the Federal Reserve at its March meeting, sending stocks lower and the US dollar rising.
➡️ Markets continued to price in a lower possibility that the US Federal Reserve will act to cut rates at its March meeting. Yesterday the CME FedWatch tool showed a 65% probability of a cut in March, which reading as now has dropped to 61%. This move was partly triggered by yesterday's stronger-than-expected US retail sales data, which suggests that the US economy is still too strong to be indifferent to the potential impact of rate cuts. Another factor was the small, unexpected rise in UK inflation data yesterday. Markets were hit by the strengthening US dollar and weakening stock markets.
➡️ In the Forex market, the Japanese yen has been the strongest major currency since the Tokyo open today. The US dollar was the weakest, putting the USD/JPY currency pair in focus.
➡️ Gold fell quite hard yesterday, but seems to have found some support in the $ 2000 round number area.
➡️ Australian unemployment data released a few hours ago showed a slight underestimation, but the unemployment rate remained constant at 3.9%.
➡️ Cocoa futures reached a new multi-year high price yesterday, which will keep trend traders interested in this commodity on the long side. It has been showing a powerful bullish trend for more than a year now.
US unemployment claims data will be released today, which is expected to show that 206,000 new claims were filed most recently.
Credit by DailyForex.com