Open: New York Session | Forex, Metals, Oil, Agriculture March 12, 2021

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Agriculture

Russia, one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, has imposed several grain export taxes and a series of other measures as it seeks to stabilise domestic food inflation. Historically dry conditions in Brazil last year led to a slow soybean planting pace. Arabica coffee futures on ICE closed higher on Thursday, boosted partly by a strengthening in Brazil’s real currency, while sugar and cocoa prices also rose. The country’s Pampas farm belt has suffered unusually dry weather since the middle of 2020.

Currencies

The steepest losses against the US dollar have been seen by the franc (-0.46%), the New Zealand dollar (-0.38%) and the Australian dollar (-0.33%). Along with this, considering that the dollar index is trading around a support level, the intraday trend might be positive for the dollar and negative for the rupee. There are three fundamental downside drivers: Returns on US debt remain the main market driver – and when they rise, the dollar moves higher as well.
The Indian rupee jumped 20 paise to trade at 72.71 against the US dollar in opening deals on Friday, taking cues from positive equity markets. Because the recent trend has been positive, bulls might be able to push the dollar index upwards on the back of the support at 91.50. In the previous session on Wednesday, the domestic currency had edged marginally higher by 2 paise to end at 72.91 a dollar. The euro swung between gains and losses after the ECB meeting, but amid a weakening dollar, buyers mustered a rally to 1.1990.
Brent crude, the international standard for pricing, lost 28 cents to USD 69.35 per barrel.The US dollar cost 109.11 Japanese yen, up from 108.53 yen late Thursday. The reason for this is simple – as the price of gold is linked to the USD, a rise in the dollar value makes the commodity more expensive. He is also Chairman of SchiffGold, his precious metals dealer, Euro Pacific Asset Management, and Euro Pacific Bank, his brokerage firm for international clients.

Metals

Gold and silver prices edged lower today in Indian markets as a rally in risk assets took some shine off precious metals. less When the price of gold surpassed $2,000 USD per ounce in August 2020, it was revered as a key milestone for the precious metal. Despite this bullish outlook, the prospects for gold does not look as positive – the price per ounce is currently sitting around $1700. We offer mass affluent, HNW, UHNW and institutional investors including family offices, gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion in London, Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, Perth and soon Dubai.
Nevertheless, a softer-than-expected US PPI print for February could pave the way for gold prices to continue rebounding higher ahead of the FOMC monetary policy meeting next week. Such optimism was due to the fact that investors and traders were buying into gold to reduce their risk exposure and manage the market volatility caused by COVID-19. On MCX, gold futures were down 0.3% to Rs 44,731 per 10 grams while silver declined 0.5% to Rs 67,177 per kg.
Generally speaking, when the value of the USD increases relative to other major global currencies, the price of gold is likely to fall. In fact, there is reason to believe that the buyer momentum responsible for the so-called ‘2020 gold rush’ is waning as investors look to other assets. However, it now looks as though the USD is consolidating its position and set for a recovery, which will negatively impact the gold price.

Oil

Shell’s oil trading operations, known internally as Trading & Supply, accounted for 43% of the oil products division’s total earnings of $5.995 billion in 2020. In their monthly oil market report, the group s analysts revised down their demand growth forecast for the first half of the year. OPEC expects oil demand to recover in the second half of this year. They expect oil demand to increase to 5.89 million bpd, up by 10,000 bpd compared to the previous forecast.
Fuel oil stocks showed a build of 17,000 mt to 1.7 million mt. An eight-session rally kept Malaysian palm oil futures on track for their best week in nearly five-and-a-half years, as tight inventories and strength in rival soyoil underpinned the market. It is used to price more than half the world’s physical oil trades and in the settlement of Brent futures on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). The US stimulus package was also seen as a positive for oil prices. The most common example is planting trees or protecting forests rather than, say, reducing reliance on coal, oil and methane.
BPCL and Indian Oil Corporation are among the top gainers today.

United States

If you pair this with a hawkish balance-sheet move by the Fed, then you may have the perfect cocktail for much weaker risk appetite, but first things first. Meanwhile, European yields are lagging the move higher in Treasuries, prompting strategists to bet on greater divergence, unless the Fed does anything to change it. The Dow added 0.6 per cent to 32,485.59, its second all-time high in a row.The Nasdaq composite gained 2.5 per cent to 13,398.67. Finally, the Nasdaq rallied back to its 50-day MA but has much work to do if it’s going to get past its February swing high.
The latest NFIB update now hints at the biggest price pressures EVER in the survey, which should lead to 2.75-3% core inflation in the US on usual correlations. Should the EFFR approach 3-4bps, then the Fed will likely opt for a technical rate hike. It will be tricky to handle for the Fed, since this is not “moderate overshooting” of inflation. With these indices doing most of the leg work there is a good chance they will drag the S&P and Nasdaq along with them.
S&P 500 futures pointed to a lower open, with Nasdaq 100 futures dropping more than 1%. Notably, statements by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and the US inflation report were not enough to halt the sell-off in sovereign bonds.

China

Beijing shamelessly breaks international obligations whenever it suits its purposes knowing western sanctions, like denying CCP officials travel privileges, have a little bite.

Europe

That could of course be OK, even to the ECB, as long as inflation expectations follow nominal bond yields higher almost 1-to-1. Metrics such as M3 growth suggest that inflation pressure could be coming in Europe as well, and in such case the ECB is clearly too pessimistic about 2023. AstraZeneca will supply less than half the number of Covid shots to the EU in the second quarter than originally planned. As we know that the ECB is wrong on right about everything, it may be time to be a little bit more upbeat on EUR inflation as well?
That would reverse a 21% drop since their high as Brexit uncertainties, trade wars, pandemic, and tax hikes weighed on transactions. David J. Merkel, CFA — 2010-present, I run my own equity asset management shop, called Aleph Investments. David Merkel is an investment professional, and like every investment professional, he makes mistakes. At its meeting yesterday, the ECB held interest rates steady. The interesting thing is that the ECB simply don’t get the Fixed Income dynamics around QE announcements.
For now, don’t expect the ECB to do anything but PEPPing up markets.

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