Market Sentiment Pressured As Yields, Dollar Climb Again

 | Apr 25, 2018 09:29

Market Overview

Market sentiment is turning more fearful as treasury yields continue to climb. All the talk in recent days has been of the US ten year yield reaching 3% for the first time since January 2014. This is nothing more than a psychological level but seems to have caught the attention of the market, as Wall Street indices fell sharply back yesterday with 3% tested again.

We are in the midst of earnings season which continues to be strong but the market appears to be fully priced and in this environment of sharply rising bond yields, the fear is driving risk appetite backwards. Bond markets will now be eying the January 2014 high on the 10 year yield which is a peak of 3.04%. The dollar has been gaining as focus has turned back on the widening interest rate differentials and on the chart of Dollar Index 91 is a key pivot level to watch now. The question is also whether these market moves begin to show a decisive safe haven bias once more similar to the February fears (at that time driven by the sharp increase in US wage growth data).

Wall Street closed sharply lower with the S&P 500 -1.3% at 2634, whilst Asian markets were broadly lower (Nikkei -0.3%) and European markets are decisively weaker early today.

In forex, the dollar is performing stronger across the majors once more, with the higher risk commodity currencies, the Aussie and Kiwi, in the firing line initially.

In commodities we find gold back lower amidst the dollar strength ($1321 is the support to watch near term), whilst oil is consolidating early today after falling sharply yesterday in a surprise API inventory build.

There is very little on the economic calendar today aside from the EIA oil inventories at 15:30 BST which will be watched after the API data yesterday showed a surprise inventory build in crude. For the EIA inventories today, crude stocks are expected to drawdown by -2.7m barrels (after a surprise drawdown of -1.1m barrels last week), with distillates expected to drawdown by -0.8m (-3.1m last week) and gasoline stocks in drawdown by -1.1m barrels (-3.0m barrels last week).

Traders of the Canadian Loonie will be on the lookout for the comments from the BoC Governor Poloz after his dovish comments over the weekend further hit the CAD.

Chart of the Day – AUD/USD

Aussie/Dollar is a tale of trend channels. The recent sharp deterioration over the past four sessions has dragged the market back to the bottom of a three month downtrend channel, but more importantly, in the process has now completed two closes in breach of the huge long term uptrend channel that has been pulling the market higher since 2016. Breaking the support at $0.7640/$0.7650 continued the recent run of lower highs and lower lows but also has re-opened the key December low at $0.7500. The momentum indicators are still negatively configured with the MACD lines turning lower and Stochastics accelerating lower. A brief respite in the selling pressure yesterday seems to have been just that as the market ins breaking lower again today. Any rallies seem to be a chance to sell now. There is a band of resistance between the overhead supply of the $0.7650 breakdown and an old pivot at $0.7710. The hourly chart shows negative configuration and unwinding moves are being sold into.

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