- Wall Street indices finished yesterday's trading lower but off the session lows. S&P 500 dropped 0.60%, Dow Jones moved 0.17% lower, Nasdaq declined 0.92% and small-cap Russell 2000 dropped over 1.4%
- Nvidia dropped over 4% amid a pre-earnings uncertainty, with other US mega-caps also trading lower
- Amazon will replace Walgreens Boots Alliance in the Dow Jones index, effective from Monday
- Indices from Asia-Pacific traded mostly lower today - Nikkei and Kospi dropped 0.2%, S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.6% lower, while Nifty 50 traded flat. Indices from China gained 1-2%
- Index futures are pointing to a flat or slightly higher opening of today's cash session for European indices
- According to Axios report, House Republicans are now expecting a government shutdown to occur as the chance of passing a budget or spending stopgap bill by March 1, 2024, is getting slimmer
- According to Reuters report, Chinese air traveller numbers were 44.6% YoY higher in January
- New Zealand PPI inflation slowed from 0.8% to 0.7% QoQ in Q4 2023 (exp. 0.4% QoQ)
- Australian wage growth decelerated from 1.3% to 0.9% QoQ in Q4 2023 (exp. 0.8% QoQ)
- Japanese exports increased 11.9% YoY in January (exp. 9.5% YoY) while imports were 9.6% YoY lower (exp. -8.4% YoY)
- Cryptocurrencies trade lower today - Bitcoin drops 0.5%, Ethereum trades 0.6% lower, Dogecoin declines 1.1% and Ripple plunges 2.1%
- Energy commodities trade lower - oil drops 0.1% while US natural gas prices decline 0.4%
- Precious metals gain - gold and platinum trade 0.3% higher, silver adds 0.6% and palladium rallies 1.3%
- NZD and AUD are the best performing major currencies, while CHF and JPY lag the most
Chinese CHN.cash is booking strong gains today and breaks above the 5,500 pts resistance zone. The index attempted to break above the downward trendline, but failed to do so. Source: xStation5
