- The first trading day of a new week was marked with limited liquidity and action on the markets as US and UK traders were off for holidays
- European stock market indices traded higher today - German DAX gained almost 0.4%, French CAC40 moved almost 0.5% higher, Spanish Ibex added 0.7% and Italian FTSE MIB jumped 0.8%. Polish WIG20 and Dutch AEX were laggards and traded flat
- Cryptocurrencies caught a bid in the second half of the day, with Bitcoin jumping above $70,000 mark and ETHEREUM approaching $4,000 area
- Precious metals benefitted from USD weakening - gold gained 0.9%, platinum added 2.7% and palladium jumped 3%. Silver was the outperformer with an over 4.5% surge
- NZD and AUD were the best performing major currencies, while USD and JPY lagged the most
- ECB Rehn said that inflation converging to 2% target in a sustained way signals that June is a good moment to start easing policy
- ECB Villeroy said that June rate cut is a done deal unless there is a major surprise before next week's meeting
- ECB chief economist Lane said that June rate cut is appropriate if inflation outlook holds until the meeting
- German IFO Business Climate index remained unchanged at 89.3 in May (exp. 90.4). Current assessment subindex dropped from 88.9 to 88.3 (exp. 89.8), while Expectations subindex improved from 89.7 to 90.4 (exp. 90.8)
- Norwegian unemployment rate increased from 4.0 to 4.3% in April
SILVER surges over 4.5% today and erases the majority of last week's declines. Source: xStation5
