Close: London Session | Forex, Metals, Oil, Agriculture February 22, 2021

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Currencies

US Dollar weakness over the last two sessions offered gold prices some relief after a heavy selloff observed earlier last week. less Gold prices edged slightly higher during APAC session on Monday as the US Dollar (DXY) index traded steadily near the 50-Day Moving Average line. The rally in the US rates put a fresh bid under the dollar across its main peers, keeping the additional upside elusive in the metal, for now. Junk bonds ex-US were the only other winner last week for the major asset classes, in part due to a further weakening of the US dollar.
If he reiterates the bank’s willingness to do more and opens the door to expanded bond-buying, yields could fall and the dollar could rise. Oil is the key to the dollar’s weakness, and its ability to remain above $60 is key for the rest of the trading week and month. While the US dollar is expected to weaken, the rise in US Treasury yields makes the greenback slightly more attractive against other lower-yielding currencies (FXB).
Sterling retains its recent underlying bid and trades either side of 1.4000 against the US dollar (UUP) in quiet trading conditions. As oil prices recouped all the losses sustained from early 2020, the Canadian dollar continues to benefit from this strong tailwind. The dollar inched down, while gold prices gained.

Metals

Well, although the “digital gold vs. gold” narrative is fun, it’s not clear that it’s real in any meaningful sense. Copper vaulted above $9,000 a ton.Coming up… Gold prices have been trending lower since early January, weighed by vaccine progress and rising longer-dated Treasury yields. Real yields exhibit a historically negative correlation with gold prices, and their inverse relationship can be visualized in the graph below. Further rises in real yields may serve to undermine gold prices, which is non-yielding.
less The reflation trade emerges as the key theme starting out a new week this Monday, limiting the recovery in Gold (XAU/USD) from seven-month lows of $1761. >> Fabrice Drouin Ristori on Twitter is an independent investment analyst and studies the gold and silver market and their future role in the international monetary system. He follows regularly since 1970 the gold, silver and foreign exchange markets. Gold prices are trading up by 1% at Rs 46,638 per 10 grams.
Positive developments on the covid vaccine front could also likely weigh on gold. He follows and analyzes the gold and silver markets since 2008.

Oil

Iraq s oil minister claimed that the country was scrapping the bid called for prepayment for crude, which was originally intended when oil prices were lower. Asia’s third-largest economy imported about 4.8 million barrels per day (bpd) oil in January, a decline of 6% from the previous month and marginally higher than a year earlier. Oil prices rose as concerns remained over the return of storm-hit U.S. crude output. Crude oil imports into the Mediterranean (MED) fell to 26.97 mmbbl, down from 31.06 mmbbl in the previous week.
less GBP and AUS are the big winners of last week as the US fails to breach the $60 resistance barrier for Crude Oil. OPEC this month cut its 2021 forecast for U.S. tight crude, another term for shale, and expects production to decline by 140,000 barrels per day to 7.16 million bpd. Last year, Occidental Petroleum Corp. became the first large U.S. oil company to establish a plan to become greenhouse-gas neutral by 2050, including emissions from customers using its fuels.
The crude oil price found resistance above $60 and was unable to break it. less Moving crude by rail is costly, inefficient, and dangerous compared to oil pipelines.
Ust-Luga loaded 1.45 mmbbl of oil, down from 2.9 mmbbl in the previous week.

United States

Still, the pull is strong.FTSE Russell announced it will add 11 more Chinese companies (from the STAR Market, the NASDAQ-like stock market) to its global benchmarks. US stock futures are trading lower today indicating a weak opening for Wall Street indices. Nasdaq Futures are trading down by 169 points (down 1.2%), while Dow Futures are trading down by 193 points (down 0.6%). The focus this week is on Fed’s Powell testimonies, Tuesday and Wednesday, and thus today, the market may just consolidate ahead of his remarks.
less Last March, the Fed essentially urged investors to take on risk and go up the risk curve. The Nasdaq 100 (NDX) initially tried to rally during the trading session on Friday but gave back the gains to form a less than impressive candlestick. less Shares in Boeing (BA) are trading a little lower ahead of the US Open on Monday. Estimates of short interest on the stock from sources such as the NASDAQ, MarketBeat, Yahoo Finance, and Bloomberg range from 53 percent to 177 percent of float.
It also went in for a reverse 10:1 stock split because it wants to list on the US markets. Markets now look forward to the testimonies by the Fed Chair Jerome Powell due on Tuesday and Wednesday for fresh trading impetus.

China

The pan-European benchmark was down 1% at a ten day low.In Asia, China led declines, as the PBoC left rates unchanged. The comments come after Biden and President Xi Jinping spoke earlier this month.

Europe

According to the website EV-Volumes.com, sales of plug-in vehicles were 3.2 million last year with the EU accounting for 10.2 per cent of total sales. Though overall sales in the global market dropped 20 per cent year-on-year, the growth in the EU increased by 137 per cent. Last year, the European Union (EU) topped China as the largest EV car seller with sales of 1.4 million vehicles. Both the Bank of England and the ECB are buying corporate bonds to keep credit markets functioning smoothly after the coronavirus pandemic dealt a blow to the global economy.
European Union credit costs reached a record high of nearly €40 a metric ton, or about $48, this month. By now, I have built up excellent skills and experience in analyzing macroeconomic and political developments in Europe, the Eurozone and Germany, including ECB watching. Later in the session, ECB’s C.Lagarde will speak on ‘Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the EU’. Note that the numbers are down as England left the EU in February… 4 is the CEO and founder of Goldbroker.com.
Main focus: Europe, Eurozone, Germany and ECB.

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