Markets retreat ahead of Fed meeting minutes - 22.5.2024

The Dollar strengthening is intact currently. The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, added 0.03% on Tuesday.

EUR/USD slowed its sliding while GBP/USD continued its advancing yesterday while the federal statistics office Destatis data showed German producer prices of industrial products accelerated their declines year over year in April.  Euro is lower against the dollar currently while Pound is higher still. USD/JPY paused its advancing on Tuesday while AUD/USD paused its sliding with both the yen and Australian dollar lower against the Greenback currently.

Futures on three main US stock indexes are mixed currently with the yield on benchmark 10-year US notes steady at 4.414%. Stock indexes ended up on Tuesday with three main stock benchmarks recording daily gains in a narrow range from 0.17% to 0.25% as investors awaited more cues on US interest rates from the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting.

European stock indexes are down currently after closing marginally lower on Tuesday with mining stocks leading gains. Asian indexes futures are mostly retreating today with Japan’s Nikkei leading losses following disappointing trade data from the country.

Brent is retreating currently. Prices ended lower yesterday ahead of the American Petroleum Institute (API) data later in the day showing US crude oil and gasoline inventories rose last week while distillates fell. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release its US inventory data at 16:30 CET today. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fell 0.8% and is lower today. Brent lost 1% to $82.88 a barrel on Tuesday.