US stock indexes gained after US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would postpone the increase in import duties on Chinese goods
Previously, it was supposed to introduce duties of 25% for Chinese goods supplied to the US amounted 200 billion $ a year from March 1, 2019. A meeting between Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida is currently being prepared. It may take place within a few weeks. An additional positive for the US stock market was an increase in General Electric shares by 10.8% after it announced the sale of its biotechnology division, Danaher Corp, for $ 21.4 billion. Danaher’s quotes rose by 8.2%. The S&P500 left less than 5% to its historical maximum. Meanwhile, market participants expect the S&P500 companies to reduce their total profits by 0.9% in the first quarter of 2019. The ICE US Dollar Index continued falling in anticipation of an important event - Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech on the Senate Banking Committee at 16:00 CET. At the same time consumer confidence index for February will be published.
EURUSD showed a slight increase and again entrenched above the psychological level of 1.13
There were no significant news for euro yesterday, whereas the British pound gained 4-week high due to a report on the possible cancellation of Brexit. The exit of Great Britain from the European Union is to be held on March 29, 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May may propose to ban Brexit altogether without an agreement with the European Union. In this case, the entire exit procedure will be postponed for several months. In the meantime, the next vote on Brexit is scheduled for March 12 in the British Parliament. European stock indices fell against the background of negative corporate indicators of the Danish Jyske Bank and the French automaker PSA, which owns the Peugeot brand.Today meaningful macroeconomic statistics is not expected in the Eurozone.
The Japanese Nikkei adjusted down from the annual maximum
The main reasons for this were the completion of the next financial year in March and the correction of the MSCI Asia-Pacific stock index from a 5-month high. This regional index does not include Japan, but usually affects the dynamics of Nikkei. The fall in world oil prices caused a decline in oil companies’ quotations: Inpex Corp (-3.8%), Showa Shell Sekiyu (-2%) and Cosmo Energy Holdings (-2.3%). The yen slightly strengthened against the US dollar before the speech of the Fed. Australianand New Zealand dollar fell before the publication of the trade balance of New Zealand, which may be negative.
The oil quotations fell after US President’s announcement
The US President Donald Trump announced that oil prices are too high and called on OPEC and independent producers to review production volumes. An additional factor in the reduction of quotations was the forecast of commercial oil reserves growth in the United States over the week by 3.6 million barrels. The data will be published today by the independent American Petroleum Institute.The official information regarding reserves will be released tomorrow.