Markets Overview
- ASX SPI 200 futures up 1.6% to 6,819.00
- Dow Average down 0.2% to 34,092.74
- Aussie down 1.2% to 0.7027 per US$
- U.S. 10-year yield fell 6.1bps to 1.8048%
- Australia 3-year bond yield rose 7bps to 1.47%
- Australia 10-year bond yield rose 8bps to 2.02%
- Gold spot down 1.4% to $1,793.36
- Brent futures down 1.0% to $89.02/bbl
Economic Events
- 11am: (AU) Australia to Sell A$1 Billion 1.25% 2032 Bonds
- 11:30am: (AU) 4Q PPI QoQ, prior 1.1%
- 11:30am: (AU) 4Q PPI YoY, prior 2.9%
Stocks coughed up another sizable advance, the dollar jumped and gold plunged as investors continued to reprice assets to account for the Federal Reserve’s pivot to restrictive policy.
The dollar climbed alongside the two-year Treasury yield. U.S. natural gas futures spiked, a sharp move that could be a sign of bearish wagers being squeezed out of the market.
Other News
Truck drivers in Canada are protesting vaccine mandates on their industry with a massive convoy that may break a world records.
“It’s 70 km long,” Benjamin Dichter, spokesman for the Freedom Convoy 2022, told the Toronto Sun. “I have seen footage from an airplane. It’s impressive.”
The Freedom Convoy left from Vancouver for Ottawa on Sunday to protest the federal government’s vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers, which took effect on Jan. 15. The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates that roughly 15% of truckers in the country are not fully vaccinated, or about 16,000 truck drivers.
Guinness World Records show that the longest convoy recorded took place in Egypt in 2020, coming in at nearly 5 miles long.
The truckers’ convoy could be 10 times larger than the record if it stays intact on the trip to the Canadian capital. Estimates say 50,000 trucks could be participating, the Toronto Sun reported.
