The Bitcoin rally continues – oil down

Asia

Australian policymakers are thumping themselves on their interest rate backs this morning after the nation’s trade surpluss rose another 10% to $4.8bn on expectations of an equidistant retreat. Barring the Hang Seng, Chinese equities pushed up for a second day in a row on trade-talk hopes, hitting a 1-year record high. Yesterday’s Caixin services PMI rose by 3 points to 54.4.

Europe

With Theresa May scheduled to meet rival Jeremy Corbyn tonight to solve the Brexit impasse, the pound continues to consolidate towards 1.32. UK Services are down a point plus to a contractionary 48.9, while across the channel, service and composite PMIs in Europe were mostly up – excepting Germany, whose downward trailing manufacturing numbers pushed the composite down a point and a 1/2 to 51.4. This morning, Germany also posted a worisome 4.2% decline in factory orders MoM, bringing the eyarly measure down to -8.4%. Still, the upward trend in services is providing some backwind for equities – up across the region led by the DAX’s 1.7% with the FTSE trailing at 0.37.

US

The dollar lost 40 cents on the index yesterday as ISM’s non manufacturing PMI presented a 3 point retreat in March. Both the services and composite numbers from Market research droppped, but not as heavily bas expected, employment change was down below expectatons , but mortgage applications more than doubled in March to 18.6%. Indexes all closed marginally up, the Nasdaq leading with an 0.6% increase.

Commodities

Still unclear on whether the present surge was the April Fools day ETF story, another claiming prices were tracking avocado prices or mysterious bulk buyers, Bitcoin’s surge continued overnight hitting what seems to be resistance at 5,250.2 retracements occured on the way up yesterday, but a head & shoulders now seems to be forming, and the next upswing will tell if the crypto will once again break through towards 6k or bounce back towards a new level above its previous 4k. A surprising 8.24mB buildup in crude inventories yesterday put a damper on oil’s week-long surge. The commodity lost 80 cents on the barrel during the Asian session and is currently trading at 62.36. Good news for oil traders is that the balance between increasing shale production in the US and production cuts by OPEC is finally tipping towards the latter. And – indeed – oil’s performance over this year’s 1st quarter has been its best in nearly a decade.

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