investingLive European markets wrap: Dollar steadies, tech shares buoyed ahead of Fed
2026-01-28 12:59:00
Central banks:
Headlines:
Markets:
- CAD leads, CHF lags on the day
- European equities lower; S&P 500 futures up 0.2%
- US 10-year yields up 2 bps to 4.243%
- Gold up 1.4% to $5,260.43
- WTI crude oil up 0.6% to $62.77
- Bitcoin up 0.9% to $89,771
After struggling yesterday following Trump’s remarks, the dollar is seen bouncing back a little today at least. The US president said that “the dollar is doing great” and that “I don’t think the dollar has declined too much”, which sent the greenback spiraling lower in the day before. But today, the dollar is showing some signs of life but it still isn’t anything to shout about.
EUR/USD is down 0.5% to 1.1980 as it falls back below the key 1.2000 level, which was the highest in four-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, USD/JPY is steadying around 152.40, up just 0.1%, although sinking below its 100-day moving average of 153.65. That follows another ‘rate check’ of sorts by Tokyo in European trading yesterday just 30 minutes after this post here.
Elsewhere, GBP/USD is down 0.4% to 1.3785 while USD/CHF is up 0.7% to 0.7663 on the day. The latter traded down to nearly 0.7600 yesterday, which was a fresh 15-year low for the currency pair. And we also have AUD/USD trading back up above 0.7000 and is sitting near unchanged levels today after a hot Australian inflation report.
Besides the focus on the dollar, precious metals remain in the spotlight with gold surging up to fresh record highs just above $5,300 on the session. It was a brief run before some profit-taking hit and that sent gold back to $5,260 currently, though still up over 1% on the day. Meanwhile, silver is only up just a little by 0.5% to $112.40 after a surging run to briefly touch $116 earlier as well.
In the equities space, US futures are holding higher as tech shares lead the charge. That follows the positive earnings result from ASML, which reported bumper bumper profits with record AI orders of €13.2 billion. Nvidia shares are also seen up over 2% in pre-market after news that its first batch of H200 chips look set to approved by Beijing.
All of this is keeping things interesting before we get to the central bank bonanza on the week. The Bank of Canada and Federal Reserve will deliver their respective policy decisions later. The former is expected to be a more straightforward one, keeping interest rates unchanged. The latter is expected to do the same but Fed chair Powell’s press conference will be heavily watched, alongside the likely announcement of his successor by Trump.
