Morning Brew February 15 2024

Good Morning

Seemingly against all odds, there are good news from Germany for once. Commerzbank has posted the largest profit in 15 years and after Japan fell into recession, Germany is the worlds third largest economy. With he poor outlook published yesterday,, we have to see if that hold for long. At eh moment the GER40 was boosted to above the 17000.

Yesterday overall, markets recovered from the sharp decline on Tuesday. The S&P 500 gained 1%, the Nasdaq 1.30%, and the Dow 0.40%. The US 500 is back above the 5000!  Nvidia, Meta and  Tesla all rose more than 2%. Surprise of the day was Robin Hood which gained 13% on strong  earnings.

The Japanese as well as the UK GDP disappointed overnight quite strongly, the Japansese QQ Annualized fell by -1.4% against an expectation of +0.4%, the UK annual came flat against hopes for a rise of 0.3%.

10 Year Yields in the US fell below the 4.30 again to trade at 4.23 at he moment, the USD Index fell to 104.62. EURUSD is at 1.0737, GBPISD 1.2560 and USDJPY 150.10. Gold is trading at 1993 and Silver bounced to 22.50. Bitcoin rost to 52k.

We have a number of strong articles from our strats team – from a Swiss point of views the first one of the most interesting as it focusses on the Swiss Franc and cooling inflation.

Swiss Franc’s bearish view gets more legs
The faster-than-expected cooling in Switzerland’s CPI in January could provide comfort to SNB on inflation returning to target. Market is starting to look for competitive pivots, and expectations around SNB rate cuts coming before ECB and Fed could continue to gain traction. A strong franc could also be a worry for the economy, and a more evident shift in SNB’s FX stance can bring further franc downside.

Peter on the CPI Number:
Recession and not inflation is the real equity killer

Althea on Fixed income
Higher CPI shows that rates volatility will remain elevated.

Kim on precious metals:
Technical Update - Gold below 2K, set to drop lower. Silver testing key support, indicators pointing lower

Focus today will be on the US Retail sales and the initial jobless claims alongside the usual sentiment and geopolitical woes. Trade safely

Thursday
- Data JP GDP, UK GDP US Retail Sales, Initial Jobless Claims, Bostic speaks,
- Earnings: Schneider, Stellantis, Applied Materials, Airbus, Deere, Safran,

Friday
- Data US PPI

- Earnings: Eni

Expiries

Physically Settled Futures
CLH4 will expire 20 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT
KCH4 will expire 20 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT

PAH4 will expire 21 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT

Expiring CFDs

COFFEENYMAR24 will expire 19 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT
OILUSMAR24 will expire 16 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT
PALLADIUMMAR24 will expire 20 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT
COTTONMAR24 will expire 21 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT
COCOANYMAR24 will expire 21 Feb 2024 at 16:00 GMT