CURRENCY MARKET WRAP
As of Mon 2nd Dec, Singapore Time zone UTC+8
U.S. Dollar Index, -0.05%, 98.27
USDJPY, -0.01%, $109.51
EURUSD, +0.07%, $1.1017
GBPUSD, +0.11%, $1.2928
USDCAD, -0.04%, $1.3274
AUDUSD, -0.07%, $0.6765
NZDUSD, +0.05%, $0.6422
It was a quiet week on the currency front, with little movement or notable prints. Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law on Wednesday evening, prompting some angry rhetoric, but no concrete response, from Chinese officials. The signing of that act contributed to today’s cautious showing, but the overall response was muted, considering the S&P 500 was only pressured to its closing level from Tuesday after setting a fresh record on Wednesday.
STOCK MARKET WRAP
S&P500, -0.40%, 3,140.98
Nasdaq, -0.40%, 8,670.08
Nikkei Futures, +0.02%, 23,477.5
All eleven sectors ended the day in negative territory. The energy sector (-1.0%) spent the day at the bottom of the leaderboard but was able to climb off its low ahead of the close. The sector lost 1.6% for the week, pressured by significant weakness in the price of crude oil. The energy component fell more than 4.0% to $55.52/bbl, sliding back below its 50-day moving average (55.63). OPEC and OPEC+ producers will meet in Vienna next week, but there are concerns that they will not agree to lower output.
The consumer discretionary (-0.8%) sector was the second weakest performer, as retailers trailed the broader market after showing relative strength earlier this week. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 44.68, -0.34, -0.8%) registered its first loss in more than a week after touching a three-week high on Wednesday. Telsey Advisory Group shared its view of early holiday sales, noting that store traffic was likely down a touch when compared to last year. However, the firm believes that the softness was offset by an earlier availability of online sales.