Good morning
It was a quiet day as expected yesterday, US dollar slightly higher across the majors but hardly anything to write home about. GBPUSD is 1.2710, EURUSD 1.0940, both a smidge off the highs, while USDJPY is up around the 145.00 level.
As we know the US dollar is still at the weaker end of recent ranges, driven by lowering inflation and the prospect of lower rates. The middle east situation, which is now affecting shipping in the Red Sea after attacks by Iranian backed Houthi’s, has the potential to drive shipping costs higher which could, in turn, put upward pressure on inflation once again.
Bitcoin had a volatile day yesterday as it awaited an SEC ruling on BTC ETF’s. It had moved up from $45,000 to $47,250 before the announcement, it then moved up to $47,850 before dropping back to $45,000 and although it tried hard to creep back to the $46,000 area, it sits now $45,450. Its still a high level, just three months ago it was around $26,000, but the SEC confirming it had not yet approved the Bitcoin ETFs has certainly put a halt on the upside for now. However, if SEC do ever approve them, we can expect BTC to push higher. When that comes who only knows. In my view it should be never.
If yesterdays calendar looked a bit slender, todays looks positively thin. Should liven up tomorrow with US inflation but for now I’m not expecting anything to rock the boat.
In other news, I see the latest mission to the moon, this time run by a private company, has run into difficulty very soon after its launch which means a soft landing on the lunar surface is nigh on impossible. This mission failure raises once again the question of how they can make getting men to the moon look so incredibly difficult, despite it being over fifty years since the first moon landing. I’m not one of those ‘the moon landing never happened’ people but while I fully appreciate how difficult the process is, I’d have thought we’d have made it look a bit easier with the modern technology available.
Its cold up there in space, but for now we will just have to contend with some pretty cold weather down here as well. There was a heavy frost this morning, the likes of which I have not seen for some time. This cold snap looks like it will be with us for another week or so. I’d rather that than rain mind you.
- 18.20 Feds Wlliams speaks
- 21.45 NZ building permits
- 00.30 AUS trade balance
Comments