Asian Holidays and Upcoming Data Quell Today’s Financial Market Movements
February 12, 2024
The Year of the Dragon has begun in China, and markets are also closed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and South Korea for new year observances. In Japan, National Foundation Day, which celebrates the first Japanese emperor in 660 BC, has markets also closed.
In other stock markets, share prices climbed 0.9% in Indonesia, but fell 0.9% in New Zealand and 0.4% in Australia. European share prices thus far today show gains of 0.6% in Italy, 0.5% in Spain and 0.3% in France and Germany but a 0.1% downtick in Great Britain. U.S. stock futures are generally flat and awaiting the U.S. release of CPI data tomorrow, retail sales and industrial production on Thursday, and producer prices on Friday.
Other data highlights later this week include Euroland GDP growth and British CPI and PPI figures on Wednesday and then Japanese and British GDP on Thursday.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields overnight fell by 7 basis points in Italy, 6 bps in Spain, 5 bps in France and Germany and 2 bps in the United States.
The dollar is narrowly mixed, slipping 0.2% against the Japanese yen and Mexican peso but ticking up 0.4% versus the New Zealand dollar, 0.2% relative to the euro and yuan, and 0.1% vis-a-vis the Swiss franc, Canadian dollar and sterling.
Today’s prices of WTI oil, bitcoin, gold have fallen 1.1%, 0.8% and 0.2% so far.
There’s not much new economic data out this Monday.
Consumer prices in India dipped 0.1% last month, resulting in the smallest 12-month increase (5.1%) since October. Last July saw consumer price inflation crest at a 15-month high of 7.4%.
Danish consumer prices jumped 0.9% last month, more than reversing a 0.5% drop in December and resulting in a further rebound of CPI inflation to a 5-month high of 1.2%. Danish CPI inflation had previously dropped from a 479-month peak of 10.1% in May 2023 to a 41-month low of 0.1% last October.
CPI inflation in Moldova, which set a record high of 35.0% in October 2022, bounced off a 30-month low of 4.2% in December 2023 to a 2-month high of 4.55% in January.
Portuguese CPI inflation likewise rebounded from a 30-month low of 1.4% in December to a 4-month high of 2.3% last month. An earlier 265-month peak of 10.1% had also occurred in October 2022.
Ireland’s construction purchasing managers index printed at a 3-month high of 45.9 in January but has been below the expansion-versus-deterioration threshold of 50 since a 50.4 reading last June.
Industrial production in India during December was 3.8% above its year-earlier level. That’s an improvement from +2.4% in November but well down from the 16-month high of 11.7% last October and also significantly less than the fiscal year-to-date pace of 6.1%.
Copyright 2024, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: Asian holidays today, CPI inflation in India and Denmark
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