Happy St. Patrick's Day! We have a busy week ahead, with Wednesday as the main focus when we hear from the Fed. While the Federal Reserve isn’t expected to change interest rates at this week’s meeting, any remarks from Jerome Powell or changes to the dot plot projections will be in the spotlight. Today, we have U.S. retail sales data—have they been impacted by tariffs? Other highlights include Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaking at the chipmaker's annual GTC event, and in the equity world, we hear from Nike, Micron Technology, and FedEx.
Overnight, the news was positive—the Chinese economy is performing strongly, with retail sales gaining 4%, industrial output rising 5.9%, and fixed-asset investment increasing 4.1%, all exceeding economists' expectations. However, the housing market slump continues and appears to be the Achilles' heel.
In the currency world, there was a marked turnaround in the performance of G10 currencies last week. The USD has fallen from grace, and the EUR appears to have undergone a renaissance. At the same time, a risk-off attitude has shown that the JPY could be a contender for the best-performing G10 currency. However, the JPY has been pushed into third position year-to-date by the SEK and the NOK, both of which have benefited from expectations that there may be no more rate cuts in Sweden or Norway. Who said currencies are boring?
Marketwise: Bitcoin fell 0.1% to $83,108.01, Ether fell 0.2% to $1,890.91, the yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.30%, West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.6% to $67.58 a barrel, and spot gold rose 0.2% to $2,989.54 an ounce.
