CURRENCY MARKET WRAP
As of Fri 3rd Jan, Singapore Time zone UTC+8
U.S. Dollar Index, +0.37%, 96.80
USDJPY, -0.14%, $108.54
EURUSD, -0.37%, $1.1171
GBPUSD, -0.81%, $1.3147
USDCAD, -0.02%, $1.2984
AUDUSD, -0.48%, $0.6984
NZDUSD, -0.39%, $0.6698
U.S. Initial claims for the week ending December 28 decreased by 2,000 to 222,000 (consensus 225,000) while continuing claims for the week ending December 21 increased by 5,000 to 1.728 million.
China started the new year by announcing it will cut the reserve requirement ratio for small and large banks by 50 basis points on Jan. 6, providing about $115 billion in additional liquidity that can be lent out.
The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 1.57%, and the 10-yr yield declined four basis points to 1.88%. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.37% to 96.81. WTI crude increased 0.1% (+0.05) to $61.15/bbl.
STOCK MARKET WRAP
S&P500, +0.84%, 3,257.85
Nasdaq, +1.33%, 9,092.19
Nikkei Futures, +0.77%, 23,692.5
S&P 500 industrials sector (+1.8%) drew support from General Electric (GE 11.93, +0.77, +6.9%), and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (+2.1%) pushed to new highs amid strength in AMD (AMD 49.10, +3.24, +7.1%), which had its price target raised $58 from $40 at Nomura.
The mega-cap stocks in the S&P 500 information technology (+1.7%), communication services (+1.3%), and consumer discretionary (+1.3%) sectors continued to outperform, too. Apple (AAPL 300.35, +6.70, +2.3%), Amazon (AMZN 1898.01, +50.17, +2.7%), Alphabet (GOOG 1367.37, +30.35, +2.3%), and Facebook (FB 209.78, +4.53, +2.2%) each climbed more than 2.0%.