Clawing back yesterday’s US index losses of 0.1%-0.4%, the three main US index futures contracts are all up about 0.4% this morning. European trading finds the Dax up 0.5% and the FTSE down 0.2%. It has been a quiet news day suggesting that investors are primarily looking to rebalance their books for quarter end tomorrow and position ahead of the new quarter that starts on Monday.
China-sensitive equity and commodity markets have struggled overnight. Hong Kong and Shanghai fell 1.2%-1.4% overnight. This morning US Crude Oil is down 0.4%, while Copper is down 0.3%. A 9.3 mmbbl build in API US weekly oil inventories announced yesterday afternoon hasn’t helped matters. US DOE weekly oil and gasoline inventories are due at 10:00 am EDT. In currency trading, Gold is up 0.4%, Bitcoin is up 0.8% and the Yen continues to weaken.
In a quiet week for economic and earnings news, new social media stocks continue to attract a lot of attention from traders. Yesterday, Trump Media made its debut with a 16.1% gain, and it is up another 14.9% in premarket trading. Reddit, meanwhile, rallied 8.8% yesterday and is steady in today’s premarket. Both stocks started the day off strong on Tuesday then fell back in the last hour of trading as some traders started to take profits.
Tomorrow, the last trading day of a holiday-shortened week, along with the last day of the month and quarter brings a flurry of economic reports for investors to chew on. Headliners include GDP numbers for the US, Canada and the UK, plus US Chicago PMI, consumer sentiment and pending home sales. On Good Friday, US Core PCE inflation is coming out and Fed Chair Powell is speaking.