Morning Market Update – Swiss Doing Better

Asian Market

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday that the consumer prices were up by 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2017. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s trimmed mean was up by 0.5% on quarter and came in line with expectations after adding 0.4% on quarter and 1.6% in Q4. The trimmed mean denotes the RBA’s core inflation. The RBA trimmed mean CPI, which was printed at 1.9% y/y, rose to 1.8% from 1.6%.

The CPI continued to remain the same and came at 0.5% q/q versus the expected rate of 0.6%. Although the CPI came low, the 10-year Australian bond yield came at 2.66% with the highest rate coming in at 2003 last time. Also, the 10-year US yield came at 2.33% with the highest rate coming in after two-weeks.

Australia’s Q4 2017 CPI readings showed a mixed response and failed to match with the expected values. However, the annualized CPI figures reached the highest rate and came in line with the expected values. CPI headline q/q came at +0.5% versus the expected rate of 0.6% and previous rate of 0.5%, CPI headline y/y came at +2.1% versus the expected rate of 2.2% and previous rate of 1.5%, RBA trimmed mean came at +0.5% versus the expected rate of 0.5% and previous rate of 0.4%, RBA trimmed mean y/y came at +1.9% versus the expected rate of 1.8% and previous rate of 1.6%.

Other Markets

Moving on for the day, we have the All Industry Activity Index released by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which seems to remain unchanged and we expect it to stay that way.

The Swiss have the UBS Consumption Indicator which has been growing slowly and showing positive signs recently. The ZEW Survey Expectations will be released later for the day. The Swiss seems to be in a better position for the day with some positive results keeping them in demand.

The Retail Sales report released by the Statistics Canada is forecasted to be at a negative 0.2% when compared to the previous release which was seen at a positive 1.7%. Trump is planning to impose a 20% tariff rate on lumber imports from Canada.  However, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau disproved Trump’s plan of imposing a tariff rate on lumber exports. He also added that Canada will comply with the rules of NAFTA, providing the US a duty-free access for milk protein. The only major news for the dollar comes with the EIA Crude Oil Stocks which was last seen at a negative 1.034M.
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