Building in yesterday’s US market rebound, which saw major indices gain 0.75%-1.0%, US index futures are up 0.2%-0.3%. Overseas action has also been positive with the Dax up 1.0% and the Hang Seng up 0.9%. The 10-year treasury note yield has paused its advance for now near 4.00% amid conflicting Fed comments on the future of US interest rate increases. Commodity action is mixed with WTI Crude Oil down 0.7% and Copper up 0.4%.
Cryptocurrencies are in the spotlight this morning. Amid financial and regulatory struggles at crypto bank Silvergate Capital, Bitcoin and Ethereum are both down bout 4.9%. Some of the capital leaving cryptos appears to be moving into precious metals, with Silver and Platinum both rallying 1.2%, while Gold is up 0.6%.
With today being a rare first Friday of the month with no North American employment numbers, the focus of economic news has been on Service PMI reports, which for the most part have been coming in above 50 in expansion territory, and above street expectations. US ISM Service PMI is due at 10:00 am EST (street 54.5).
Overnight earnings reports have been mixed and dominated by retailers and computer producers. Positive reports out of the US included Costco ($3.30 vs street $3.21), Hewlett Packard ($0.63 vs street $0.54), and Dell ($1.80 vs street $1.64). Nordstrom was mixed, beating market expectations on earnings ($0.74 vs street $0.67), but also announcing that it is shutting down its Canadian operations.
