Ahead of today’s US holiday, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ rallied to new all-time highs in a shortened session Wednesday. Overnight and into this morning, that positive momentum has carried through overseas markets with Tokyo gaining 0.9%, Sydney rallying 1.2%, Frankfurt climbing 0.3% and Paris bouncing 0.8%.
While equity investors enter the US holiday in a celebratory mood, that has not extended to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ether are both down 4.1% today and Bitcoin has fallen decisively back under $60,000. This suggests that investor appetite for risk may be fading. Commodity markets are mixed with Copper up 0.75%, but US Crude Oil down 0.6%. Gold is holding steady.
It’s UK election day today and heading into the big vote, the FTSE is up 1.0%. Polls and press reports suggest we could see a similar result to the Canadian election of 1993 with Labour leading, the Conservatives facing a potential collapse, and Reform apparently poised to make a big leap. Polls close at 5:00 pm EDT so results may have a greater impact on trading tomorrow.
Tomorrow brings US nonfarm payrolls (street 190K vs previous 272K) and Canada jobs (street 22K). ADP payrolls and jobless claims earlier this week pointed to a potentially softening job market. In addition to the headline results, traders may also look at wage inflation, full/part-time splits and government/private sector splits for indications of what’s happening under the hood.