No single trend in global equities ahead of US retail sales data - 14.1.2022

The Dollar weakening continues currently. The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, slipped 0.1% Thursday after the US Labor Department report above-forecast 230 thousand Americans sought unemployment benefits over the last week, up from 207 thousand the previous week.

Both EUR/USD and GBP/USD continued their climbing yesterday. Both Pound and euro are higher against the Dollar currently. AUD/USD joined USD/JPY’s continued sliding yesterday with both the yen and Australian dollar higher against Greenback currently.

Futures on three main US stock indexes are mixed currently with US 10-year Treasury note yields down at 1.766%. US stock market resumed retreating Thursday as Fed Governor Lael Brainard signaled that rates will rise in March to combat inflation while wholesale prices inflation hit a new 12-month record in December. The three main US stock benchmarks recorded daily losses in the range of 0.5% to 2.5% led by tech stocks.

 European stock indexes are mixed currently after closing lower Thursday led by household goods shares. Asian indexes are mostly retreating today led by Nikkei as data showed Japan's wholesale inflation accelerated to 8.5% over year in December, the second fastest pace on record.

Brent is edging higher. Prices ended lower yesterday after the US Energy Information Administration on Wednesday indicating total domestic crude oil inventories fell 4.8 million barrels last week but this decline was more than offset by a stock build across refined products. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) ended down 0.6% but is higher currently. Brent crude lost 0.2% to $84.47 a barrel on Thursday.