As of Wed, Apr 24, Singapore Time zone UTC+8
Dollar Index, +0.31%, $97.59
USDJPY, -0.05%, $111.89
EURUSD, -0.31%, $1.1223
GBPUSD, -0.37%, $1.2938
USDCAD, +0.64%, $1.3430
AUDUSD, -0.52%, $0.7097
NZDUSD, -0.39%, $0.6654
U.S. Treasury yields remained lower on Tuesday. The 2-yr yield declined four basis points to 2.35%, and the 10-yr yield declined two basis points to 2.57%. The U.S. Dollar Index increased 0.31% to 97.59. Dollar was strongly bid against all of the major currencies except for the Japanese Yen, which was held back by the 112 resistance level. WTI crude rose 1.1% to $66.33/bbl, nearing a six-month high.
U.S. New home sales in March increased 4.5% m/m to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 692,000 (consensus 646,000), which was the strongest pace since November 2017. Sales were up 3.0% yr/yr. The solid sales activity was helped by a 9.8% decline in the median sales price and lower mortgage rates.
S&P500, +0.88%, 2,933.68
Nasdaq, +1.26%, 7,810.71
Nikkei Futures, +0.49%, 22,350.0
The S&P 500 (+0.88%) and the Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) both set all-time closing highs on Tuesday in a broad-based advance. Investor sentiment was buoyed by a batch of positive earnings reports from widely-held companies and positive economic data.
There were earnings beats from a diverse set of companies that included United Technologies (UTX 140.02, +3.11, +2.3%), Coca-Cola (KO 48.21, +0.81, +1.7%), Verizon (VZ 57.15, -1.22, -2.1%), Procter & Gamble (PG 103.16, -2.85, -2.7%), Lockheed Martin (LMT 331.10, +17.84, +5.7%), Twitter (TWTR 39.77, +5.38, +15.6%), and Hasbro (HAS 100.65, +12.54, +14.2%).
Yesterday’s advance was broad-based, led by the health care (+1.6%), consumer discretionary (+1.2%), and information technology (+1.1%) sectors. The lone exception was the consumer staples sector (-0.1%), which was held back by the underperformance of Procter & Gamble.