The banking sector led to declines in the stock market on Thursday as investors worried that the Fed’s aggressive rate hiking had finally caused issues in the financial system following SVB Financial’s crash. Risk appetite circulated to safe havens instead.
Chart: GBPUSD
Silicon Valley Bank parent firm SVB Financial was forced to raise capital to cover asset impairments, resulting in a 60% crash in their stock. Fears of a banking meltdown led gold to 0.95% higher and USD/CHF 1% lower, from 0.9414 to 1.9321. The slide continues early Friday for the latter, but the former remains on standby off the local high at $1835/oz as participants turn to the Nonfarm payrolls.
The weekly initial jobless claims came in above 200K for the first time this year, while continuing claims hit the highest level in over a year. Meanwhile, Challenger job cuts for Jan-Feb hit the highest level since 2009. The combination of events sent the 2-year treasury yield below 5.0% and the dollar index 0.33% down. Cable rose 0.65% to 1.1920 as a result due to recent sensitivity on yield-differentials speculation and has formed local support at $1.19.
US natural gas storage saw a drawdown of 84B cf compared to expectations of 79-81B, as colder weather persisted in the north and western areas of the country. This follows an upbeat week for WTI stockpiles, with crude and gas prices down for the day, as the initial spike was reversed in the aftermath of the SVB story. WTI lost 3.20% from Thursday’s peak at $78/bbl, and natural gas closed the session 4.13% lower to $2.54/cf. The following support levels are $74.50/bbl and $2.46/cf.
BOJ sets the reference rate at -0.1%, as anticipated, with no changes to the band of YCC. Japan’s PPI came in lower than expected at -0.4% compared to the -0.3% forecast, and the annual rate of 8.2% was the lowest since October 2021. USD/JPY was down 0.86% on Thursday, and it is currently near resistance at 137.00 as it recovers from a low of 136.12. 137.30 might be next, should the rally continue.
EU’s Energy Chief Kadri Simson said that the EU should stop all LNG imports from and that European firms should not sign new contracts with when existing contracts expire. In Europe, the EUR/USD pair rose 0.34% to $1.0578 on the back of a weaker dollar and hit stiff resistance at $1.06 early Friday.
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