Gold price is trading slightly higher leading into the European open
Frankfurt (May 14) Gold moves into the last trading day of the week 0.12% higher overnight at $1829/oz, this comes after some solid gains during Thursday's session. Silver is trading just around flat but above the $27/oz psychological area. In the rest of the commodities complex, copper is down half a percent while spot WTI is also trading flat at $63.78/bbl.
After a positive handover from Wall Street the Nikkei 225 (2.37%), ASX (0.45%) and Shanghai Composite (0.54%) all closed in positive territory. European futures markets are pointing to a positive cash open.
In FX markets, most of the majors traded in tight ranges. Only EUR/USD moved into double-digit percentage change as the pair traded 0.17% higher. BTC/USD has recovered from hitting its lows of $46k and now trades at $49,020.
Looking at some of the news stories from overnight, Japan will use 512 bn yen from the emergency budget reserve to secure vaccines. Japan's Prime Minister Suga is set to deliver a press conference at 11 am London time.
US Sec State Blinken said the US will not leave Australia alone to face China's coercion. This comes after a string of measures that had been imposed on Australia from China, one was a ban on coal imports.
Bank of England Gov Bailey says there might be a case for digital currency. BoE Dep Gov Cunliffe agreed when it comes to the BoE issuing its own digital currency.
In terms of data from overnight, New Zealand manufacturing PMI for April reached 58.4 (prior 63.6).
After the epic post Musk fall, some good news as Coinbase says it plans to list DOGEcoin in a few week's time.
Fed's Bullard says its a judgement call on whether inflation is transitory. He then went on to say monetary policy is in a good position, do not want to shift policy in a crisis. Bullard was very bullish on the U.S. economy and said it is to grow beyond the pre-pandemic level of output by the end of June.
On the politics front, US President Biden says to meet with Republicans again next week on infrastructure. Biden also noted he wants to see real progress on a bipartisan deal by memorial day.
The CME has raised copper futures maintenance margins by 8.2% to $6,600 per contract starting May 2021.
China's top steel-producing city is to warn mills to maintain market order and has said it will examine illegal practices designed to manipulate prices.
Looking ahead to the rest of the session highlights include the ECB monetary policy statement, U.S. retail sales, Canadian manufacturing sales, U.S. manufacturing & industrial production, Michigan data, weekly Baker Hughes rig count and comments from Fed's Kaplan.
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