Summary:

  • Stocks around the world benefit from easing trade war tensions

  • Bitcoin tries to make its way back above the $8k handle

  • US Conference Board is the sole macro release that may shake the markets today

The trade war theme is still the main market mover as new revelations and remarks steer the movement of markets around the globe. Comments from the US Treasury Secretary caused US companies to surge spurring a new wave of optimism on the global equity markets. USD is the top performer in the G10 basket today while GBP is performing the worst. Gold trades significantly lower on the back of greenback strengthening. On the other hand, oil posts decent gains ahead of the weekly API report.

Our analysis of the the best FX, indices and commodities markets in the first quarter of 2018 is available here.

Litecoin was among the most hit cryptocurrencies on Monday which could be ascribed directly to the newest revelations coming from the company. Namely, the payments processor LitePay ceased operations prompting some concerns that the coin’s founder is setting the stage for selling the company. The communique is official as it came from the Litecoin Foundation saying that LitePay CEO Kenneth Asare informed the organization a “couple days ago” that “he has ceased all operations and is preparing to sell the company”.

Along with receding risks related to a trade war global equities continue licking their recent wounds, Europe is going to track its counterparts from America as well as Asia as most of indices have opened broadly higher. Investors were reassured following the latest Trump’s tweet suggesting that ” In the end, all will be happy”. Obviously the jury is still out and there is still a lot to agree in order to get rid of a trade risk. Do notice that the ongoing rally in global equities should be perceived as a relief rally and it might have nothing to do with a long-standing comeback to the bull market.

Admittedly, the FX Asian session turned out to be quite listless to say the least, equity markets saw much more volatility following decent gains on Wall Street. Better moods were probably sparked by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who told Fox News Sunday that he is optimistic a trade agreement will be negotiated with China and therefore a trade war ought to be avoidable. Mnuchin acknowledged that even as the US is proceeding with tariffs, and working on investment restrictions against China they are simultaneously having negotiations with the second largest economy in the world to see if they can reach an agreement.

Not a single top-tier macroeconomic release was planned for Tuesday’s morning. However, in the afternoon US Conference Board reading is going to be published thus an increased volatility on the USD tied FX pairs may spur. In the evening oil traders will look for hints in the API report on oil inventories ahead of the official one scheduled to be released tomorrow.