Morning Briefing: Earnings, RBA give markets a boost

Earnings, RBA give markets a boost

Regional earnings and the decision of Australia’s central bank to hold interest rates, have contributed to a generally positive tone among world markets so far Tuesday.

The French presidential election is in focus along with the Fed meeting and regional economic data.

Asian markets closed mostly higher despite some weak data for Chinese manufacturing; Shanghai and Sydney both closed lower.

European indexes are trending higher although Eurozone manufacturing and unemployment figures disappointed. Regional earnings were in focus and a rise for both oil and gold prices.

Wall Street and Toronto are expected to open flat. No major data releases are due.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	20,913.46 (-0.13 per cent)	+1.21 per cent	+16.89 per cent
TSX Composite	15,575.63 (-0.07 per cent)	+0.18 per cent	+12.33 per cent
Europe (at 5.00am ET)
UK FTSE	7,235.64 (+0.44 per cent)	-1.19 per cent	+15.92 per cent
German DAX	12,449.35 (+0.09 per cent)	+1.11 per cent	+24.01 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,426.58 (-0.38 per cent)	-0.85 per cent	+8.55 per cent
Japan Nikkei	19,445.70 (+0.70 per cent)	+2.84 per cent	+20.43 per cent
Other Data (at 5.00am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
51.85 (+0.64 per cent)	49.04 (+0.41 per cent)	1255.90 (+0.03 per cent)	U$0.7317
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7531

Fed may increase interest rates…but not this month

A poll of economists by Reuters shows that most believe that there will be no increase in interest rates when the Fed meets this week.

The experts believe that the US central bank will want to consider additional economic data before making the next increase but that could be in June.

Softer growth in the first quarter of 2017 will be downplayed when the Fed’s chair Janet Yellen holds her press conference according to  Wells Fargo’s Sam Bullard who told Reuters that he is not expecting many changes to the Fed’s policy statement.