U.S. NFP, Unemployment Rate, Italian PPI, Oil Rig Count

As the dollar started retracing from its recent high, the EUR/USD rate also managed to start a slow recovery and was trading by Friday morning again close to the 1.06-level. The common European currency performed fairly mixed against other majors as it was up at a new year-to-date high against the New Zealand Dollar (NZD) and Australian dollar (AUD), while at the same time weakening against the Japanese yen (JPY) and pound sterling (GBP).

German consumer price index (CPI) data published on Thursday confirmed the preliminary statistics released earlier that consumer price inflation was up by 8.7% on a year-on-year basis. Friday morning Italian producer price index (PPI) statistic can be expected.

French trade balance data released on Friday morning indicated a moderate decline in trade balance deficit from €14.9 billion in the previous month to €12.9 billion in January.

Just as the dollar retraced from the recent high and longer term yields like the 10-year U.S. T-Note rapidly declined, gold prices managed to recover from their low for this week. Though even during the market turmoil on Tuesday, gold maintained the level also seen during the past weeks. Silver prices meanwhile merely remained around $20 per troy ounce without any clear attempt of a recovery seen after reaching a new four months low earlier this week. While a moderate recovery initially could be observed in the platinum and palladium markets, the retracement by Friday morning reversed the sentiment and the precious metals traded again close to the levels seen following the sell-off on Tuesday.

Oil prices are still dropping with Friday on track to be the fourth trading day in a row where the price of the commodity declines as a barrel of WTI crude oil traded at times even below $75. Gasoline prices also came down from their recent high and were by Friday morning down by more than 6% on a weekly basis.

On Friday the U.S. Baker Hughes Oil Rig Count statistic will be published. Last week the number of operating oil rigs declined to the lowest level since the autumn of 2022.

Next week on Wednesday the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes its oil market report for 2023.

After a brief consolidation of the equity markets on Wednesday, the bearish move continued, bringing the US 500 index to a new two months low with further losses seen by Friday morning. The US Tech 100 index also came under pressure, but was for now still maintaining a level also seen last week.

Significant losses were recorded especially in the financial (US Financials Long x3 -12.21%) and banking sectors (US Banks -7.38%).

General Electric (+5.30%) was by far the best-performing component of the S&P 500 index on Thursday after the company confirmed its previously issued guidance for the year 2023 ahead of a scheduled investor conference and stressed the importance of its aerospace division.

JD.com (-11.27%) was one of the weakest performers during the session on Thursday, while other Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. like Baidu (-7.53%) and Pinduoduo (-7.92%) also performed poorly. There are concerns about the slowing rate of revenue growth despite the Chinese retail ecommerce giant announcing continued growth to one trillion renminbi revenue for the first time in a year and roughly doubling its earnings from last year.