investingLive Americas market news wrap: Fed and BOC holds rates with minimal drama

Markets:

• Gold hits record $5338, up 2.5% on the day
• WTI crude oil up 94-cents to $63.33
• US 10-year yields up 2.6 bps to 4.25%
• S&P 500 flat
• CAD leads, CHF lags

You get the sense the market is starting to tune Powell out as his term winds down. The ‘no change’ decision wasn’t a surprise and nothing in the statement made waves but in the press conference he was upbeat on the economy and that did little to sway markets or Fed funds futures pricing. That’s likely on account of his term ending in May, with the June decision continuing to show 19 bps of easing.

The Bank of Canada meeting was arguably even less surprising. The BOC forecasts were little changed and Macklem indicated they were going to be gathering plenty of data before moving on rates again. In turn, USD/CAD wraps up the day basically flat.

Joining the refrain was Schnabel who said the ECB was likely going to be holding for an extended period.

The biggest market mover was the set of comments from Bessent, who went back to the ‘strong dollar’ refrain despite comments yesterday from Trump that seemed to endorse a weaker dollar. That led to a quick move higher in USD/JPY to 153.75 from 152.80 and it was a sideways chop from there.

Precious metals were on the move again led by gold with the help of an interesting report saying that tether has been accumulating huge gold reserves to rival many global central banks.

After the close today we get earnings from Meta, Microsoft and Tesla.