- Thursday's session in Asia-Pacific markets is proceeding in a mixed mood. Japan's Nikkei is currently gaining close to 0.25%, the Hang Seng is losing 0.5% and Korea's Kospi index is adding 0.55%.
- Trading will resume today on Wall Street, where trading was halted yesterday in view of the Liberation Day holiday. At this point, futures are pointing to a higher opening in today's cash session. The situation is similar for European index futures.
- Futures based on US indices opened today after the futures contract rolled over, and we are therefore seeing increased volatility on these instruments.
- We have an interesting day ahead in terms of the publication of macro readings. Investors will learn about PPI inflation from Germany, the SNB's decision on interest rates, the Norges Bank's decision on interest rates, a set of macro data from Poland, the BoE's decision on interest rates and the US crude oil inventory report, among others.
- On Thursday, Federal Reserve representatives will speak: Kashkari, Barkin, Daly.
- The PBoC's annual and five-year lending rates remain unchanged at today's meeting, a decision in line with expectations.
- New Zealand's economy returned to growth in Q1, beating expectations. New Zealand's Q1 GDP was +0.2% q/q (+0.1% expected).
- A Japanese survey of company employees indicated that only 7% of those surveyed believe that wage growth will be faster than the rate of inflation.
- Dell Technologies Inc (DELL.US), led by Michael Dell, announced a partnership with NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) to build an AI factory designed to enhance the capabilities of Grok, the AI model developed by Elon Musk's company, xAI. Dell shares gained more than 3.3% in after-hours trading.
- Slightly larger gains are seen in the precious metals market this morning. Gold gains 0.6%, while silver added over 2.5%.
- Bitcoin gain 0.5% and is thus back in the region of the resistance level set by $65 300.
