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Gold and silver are both trading higher this morning after some positive price action in the U.S. and Asian sessions. Gold has moved 0.40% in the black to trade at $1793/oz and silver has jumped 0.91% to trade at $26.71/oz. In the rest of the commodities complex, copper trades 0.83% higher, and spot WTI has moved 0.75% in the black.
In terms of risk sentiment overnight, the indices were pretty mixed. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.80% while the Shanghai Composite (-0.12%) and ASX (-0.48%) both struggled. European index futures are pointing to a slightly positive open. (China and Japan are playing catch-up after public holidays).
In the FX markets, all the majors traded within their ranges. From a technical perspective, USD/CAD looks the most interesting as it could be breaking to a new low not seen since January 2018. In the crypto market, BTC/USD had a good session yesterday rising just over 8% but the bulls have failed to capitalize on that this morning.
Looking at the news stories, China's state planner says the nation will suspend China-Australia's economic dialogue. There have been lots of issues recently with China not too keen on Australia commenting on human rights issues in the nation.
Britain is also looking to stockpile rare earth minerals used for the production of electric cars as they are not too sure how the relationship with China will develop. The government is also looking the UK's access to vital materials including lithium and cobalt.
In terms of data, Germany factory orders for March jumped to reach +3.0% vs +1.5% m/m expected. NZ preliminary business confidence (May) +7.0 (prior -2.0) and activity outlook +32.3 (prior +22.2). New Zealand building approvals for March improved massively and hit +17.9% m/m (vs. prior -18.2%).
There have been rumors overnight that are New Zealand government will shut its border to Sydney today. This comes as some new COVID-19 cases have been reported. Elsewhere Japan is considering extending its state of emergency by one more month as the nation struggles to get a grip with the pandemic.
Cooling some of the recent rhetoric from the likes of Kaplan, Fed's Rosengren says it is too early to talk about tapering QE. Rosengren went on to say we need to make substantial improvements before we begin to have that conversation.
Looking ahead to the rest of the session highlights include the BoE meeting, U.K. local elections, German construction PMI, ECB economic bulletin, EU retail sales and U.S. initial jobless claims. There are also lots of central bank speakers including BoE's Bailey, Fed's Kaplan, Mester, Bostic, ECB's Schnabel, de Guindos and Lagarde.
By Rajan Dhall
For Kitco News
