Markets are still in a holding pattern, favouring 'risk off' highlighted by iron ore futures sinking to their lowest level since 2022, as China grapples with the need to stop producing steel while demand is weak. All eyes are still on Friday's NFP number and yesterday the US job openings fell to 7673k in July, lower than the 8100k consensus, whilst, June job openings were revised down to 7910k from 8184k. Today we have the ADP numbers and they will also enable us to speculate about Friday's number.
In North America yesterday the Bank of Canada cut by 25 bps as expected. Presently the BoC doesn't provide strong forward guidance as it mentions inflation risk is two-sided and in the opening statement of the press conference, the central bank says: "Inflation is expected to ease further in the months ahead. It may bump up later in the year as base-year effects unwind, and there is a risk that the upward forces on inflation could be stronger than expected. At the same time, with inflation getting closer to the target, we need to increasingly guard against the risk that the economy is too weak and inflation falls too much." USDCAD opens at 1.3500 and the key resistance is the 200 day moving average at 1.3585.
In other markets, Bitcoin fell 1.4% to $57,233.15, Ether fell 1.7% to $2,413.91, the yield on 10-year Treasuries sits at 3.76%, West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.3% to $69.44 a barrel and Spot gold opens at 2505. The most read story in the FT is Volvo cars ditching its pledge to sell only electric cars by 2030 and VW says it has 'a year, maybe two' to adapt to a slump in European Car Sales.
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