06/02/2014

Good morning,

Equities in Japan lost 25 points, the Nikkei closed at 14,155 (-0.18%) and in Hong Kong the Hang Seng  closed at 21,410.84 (+0.67%), up 141.46 points.  In Europe at 8:20 GMT the DAX is up 50 points at 9,160 (+0.48%) and in UK the FTSE100 is up 17 points at 6,476 (+0.28%).

Today trading session is rich of events: at 11:00 GMT is going to be released Factory Orders in Germany and at 12:00 in UK the Bank of England will decide the interest rate level. The expected value of 0.5% will add however volatility on the British Pound. At 12:45 is going to be the turn of ECB interest rate decision. The historical low level set at 0.25% is likely to stay unchanged until inflation pressure will stay low. At 13:30 the ECB press conference and monetary statement probably will be the most important event of the day. Mr. Draghi speech will have a weight on the FX market and likely on risk appetite of equities.

The currency market  is calm this morning, before to take a directions currency pairs are waiting the news flow from central banks. EurUsd is down 9 pips at 1.3523 (-0.07%) and UsdJpy is trading at 101.34 (-0.1%).  GbpUsd is losing 17 pips at 1.6291 (-0.1%). UsdChf is unchanged at 0.9037 and today range is less than 20 pips. Metals are positive during the European session and Silver is outperforming Gold at 20.06 $/ounce (+0.77%). The shiny metal is trading at 1,260 $/ounce (+0.17%).

Crude oil is at 97.55 $/barrel and Natural Gas is at 5.20 $/BTU (+3.38%).

Financial markets need good data to improve market sentiment otherwise a break below significant levels could kick off another selloff wave in many asset classes and lift the US treasuries and the German Bund.  Emerging market situation is monitored as well because a capital outflow from those countries can put under pressure their currencies.