• Not much appetite among major currencies for now, awaiting the US jobs report
• Underlying inflation has likely peaked in 1H 2023 – ECB
• Japan banking regulator says sees no big impact from BOJ shift for now
• Eurozone June retail sales -0.3% vs +0.2% m/m expected
• Germany June industrial orders +7.0% vs -2.0% m/m expected
• Germany July construction PMI 41.0 vs 41.4 prior
• UK July construction PMI 51.7 vs 48.0 expected
• BNP Paribas lowers BOE terminal rate forecast to 5.50%

Markets:

• USD leads, CHF lags on the day
• European equities mixed; S&P 500 futures up 0.2%
• US 10-year yields flat at 4.192%
• Gold down 0.1% to $1,931.15
• WTI crude up 0.6% to $82.05
• Bitcoin down 0.5% to $29,132

It was a bit of a sideways session as markets are waiting on the US non-farm payrolls later today.

Major currencies saw little appetite as the dollar keeps steady but mostly little changed overall. Meanwhile, equities were optimistic early on as tech shares were buoyed by Amazon’s earnings beat. But gains were tempered during the session, with European indices now trading close to flat levels while US futures are just slightly higher.

Treasury yields are also little changed in general as traders are waiting on the US jobs report later to see if they would want to pile on to the selling that we have seen so far this week in bonds.

The non-farm payrolls later is the first key hurdle highlighted by Powell at the FOMC meeting last week. As such, this could just be marking the calm before the storm later especially if the numbers continue to run hot.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.