Market Commentary February 6

The Trading Daily Market Commentary features a summary of selected market segments as well as economic matters. Its content of interest is made available to all traders and investors at large

The American market was up and down all day across the main indices. Corporate earnings resumed activity, with the stock market responding to Monday’s earnings from the Alphabet, Inc. 

The action in the technology and communications sectors have been pushing the markets in the initial stages of the entire new year, and yesterday saw more earnings reports, led by Walt Disney stock later after the close.

The sentiment around America/China trade talks has been assertive, revealing confidence that a deal will be made in spite of any actual material development to report, while interests on Federal Reserve policy have softened ahead of yesterday’s SOTU (State of the Union) address from President Trump.

That said the market went up once again as DJI closed with another 172 points gain, the S&P 500 added almost 13 points, the Nasdaq 100 boosted the number with the additional 64 points, while the Russell 2000 finished about 3 points on the day.

Other Market(s)

With most of Asia market closed due to the Chinese 'New Year,' Japan's activity was directed to serve the Asia-Pacific region, with the Nikkei225 index, sinking slightly on the session.

The German Chancellor Merkel recent trip to 'The Rising Of The Sun' land highlighted a concern with Huawei Technologies that data originating from the European Union must not be given over to the Chinese government as Huawei Technologies is now the second biggest smartphone maker. 

However, with global politics being as agitated as it presently is, one can see how this might be a conceivably a dangerous issue. The America-China trade argument could be driving significant business to Eurozone and Canada as well as Japan if an agreement is not quickly rectified. 

The Aussie ASX200 index jumped 2% to close at 6006, being the highest closure ever since October 10th of the last year. Gold and Silver diverged yesterday, with Gold rising ever so slightly with an almost $3 move whereas Silver declined to 15.85 on the trading session.

A very positive market for Eurozone indeed, with the German DAX30 gaining 1.67 percent, U.K. FTSE100 index ended up with 2 percent gain, while French CAC40 index racked 1.52 percent. Company earnings reports such as British Petroleum supported the lead. Also, upward revisions of the Purchasing Managers' Index numbers helped the cause.

The other regulatory news of importance - small firms won't have to clear their derivatives trading positions under revisions to EU (European Union) rules recognized by the bloc’s lawmakers and all the member countries. This will give Eurozone more competitiveness to the much less regulated jurisdictions.

The U.K. services Purchasing Managers' Index declined to 50.1 from 51.2 (A reading over 50 symbolizes the sector is increasing), thus the number shows the U.K. is just on the cusp of that. As a matter, the Sterling fell below 1.30 handle for the first time in over a fortnight. However, the Euro Dollar decreased to 1.1403, and it is heading lower.