investingLive European FX news wrap: Yen spikes again, gold and silver recoup losses

Markets:

• Silver rebounds to $111.80 from yesterday’s close at $103.89
• Gold is back up to $5080 from $5011
• WTI crude oil up 4 cents to $60.66
• S&P 500 up 16 points to 6998
• CHF leads, USD lags
• US 10-year yields up 1 bps to 4.22%

It’s been a pretty slow session given the lack of tier one data and meaningful news. The only notable event was a spike in the JPY around 09:51 GMT with market participants wondering if that was another rate check. Precious metals also remain in the spotlight after a record breaking day in silver yesterday. The losses are getting erased today and we might see new record highs in the US session.

The mood in the markets remains positive as US futures continue to climb ahead of the FOMC decision tomorrow. The Fed is expected to keep everything unchanged tomorrow as the await more data before considering rate adjustments. There’s a good chance though that Trump decides to steal the show by announcing his Fed chair pick potentially around the FOMC event.

In the American session, the main highlights will be the weekly US ADP jobs data and the US Consumer Confidence report. The weekly ADP data has been showing positive growth throughout December but that’s not something the markets cared much about given that we already got the December NFP report.

Today we will see if that momentum continued into January as the ADP will also cover the first week of the month. Based on the US Jobless Claims data, the labour market seems to be improving, and we will see if that’s really the case with the US NFP report next week.

The US Consumer Confidence is expected at 90.9 vs 89.1 prior. The latest University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey ticked higher and even though the overall improvement was small, it was broad based, seen across the income distribution, educational attainment, older and younger consumers, and Republicans and Democrats alike. Note that the consumer confidence report is heavily weighted toward labor market conditions, while consumer sentiment focuses more on household financial conditions.