• NASDAQ index rises by over 1%. Dow Industrial Average average flat
• 77 Tories are standing down ahead of the general election
• Crude oil futures trade to new session highs
• Bakers Hughes oil rigs unchanged in the current week
• European indices close unchanged/down. Lower for the week.
• Japan’s Kanda: Excessive FX moves undesirable. Ready to take action if needed
• ECBs Nagel: Core and headline inflation are decelerating
• Atlanta Fed GDPNow growth estimate for Q2 falls to 3.5% from 3.6%
• University of Michigan consumer sentiment versus 69.1 estimate. Preliminary 67.4
• Fed Gov. Waller: US financing pressures may contribute to rise in longer run neutral rate
• Kickstart FX trading for May 24 w/a technical look at the EURUSD, USDJPY and GBPUSD.
• ECBs Muller: ECB must stay cautious as inflation can surprise to the upside
• Canada retail sales for March -0.2% versus 0.0% expected
• US durable goods orders for April 0.7% versus -0.8% expected
• The EUR is the strongest and the CHF is the weakest as the NA session begins
• ForexLive European FX news wrap: Dollar lightly changed in mixed trading
• NZDUSD Technical Analysis – The market is slowly fading the US Dollar strength
• ECB’s Nagel: The probability of a June rate cut is increasing
• ECB’s Schnabel: A June rate cut is likely

As the week comes to a close, the CAD is ending the day as the strongest of the major currencies. The CHF is the weakest. The USD is mostly lower with modest gains vs the JPY and CHF. The CAD moved higher despite lower than expected retail sales in March. However, the estimate for April was solid at 0.7% offsetting the -0.2% decline this month.

The USD moved lower helped by more favorable Michigan consumer confidence. Not only did the confidence, expectations and current situation increase, but the inflation expectations moved lower (click here for the full report). An analyst on CNBC today did warn of the reliability of the data due to political bias. GOP respondents tend to have an overly negative view of the economy and inflation vs Dem counterparts. Recall in the preliminary, the confidence fall sharply while inflation moved higher. Today’s data saw those trends reverse some of the large changes from the preliminary numbers. What do you believe?.

Also in the US today, the US Durable goods orders came in stronger than expectations at 0.7% vs -0.8%. However, this data is open to sharp revisions. The Factory Orders to be released in about 10 or so days,will show the durable goods revisions. Last month, the revisions were quite significant (from 2.6% originally reported to 0.8% final).

For the trading week, versus the major currencies the USD was higher. Below is a review of the weekly change of the major currencies vs the USD:

• EUR: + 0.17%
• JPY, .+0.82%
• GBP: -0.30%
• CHF: +0.72%
• CAD: +0.3%
• AUD: + 0.93%
• NZD unchanged

In the USD market today, yields are ending the day with mixed results:

• 2- year yield 4.940%, +1.5 basis points
• 5-year yield 4.527%, +0.2 basements
• 10 year yield 4.466%, -0.8 basis points
• 30-year yield 4.572%, -0.7 basis points

For the trading week, yields are higher with the sugar and moving up the most is the yield curve go flatter:

• 2-year yield +11.9 basis points
• 5-year yield, +8.1 base points
• 10 year yield +4.5 basis points
• 30-year yield +1.1 base points

The 2-10 years spread is at -47.9 basis points which is more negative by -.7.4 basis points

The 2-30 year spread is and -37.7 basis points which is more negative by -10.8 basis points

In other markets:

• Crude oil is trading at $77.70 up $0.83 or 1.05%. For the trading week the price of crude oil fell $-1.76 or -2.22%
• Gold fell by $-79.97 or -3.31%
• Bitcoin rose $2683
• Ethereum surged by $648 to $3738. That is a gain of nearly 21% on the back of expectations that an Ethereum ETF would be approved.

Monday is a holiday in the UK and the US. Hoping all have a great weekend.

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.