Talking Points:
- Asian stocks were mostly lower
- A mixed Wall Street lead and Japan’s national holiday slowed things down
- The Dollar struggled with Fed inflation concerns.
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Asian markets were mostly subdued Thursday as the US Thanksgiving break loomed and Japanese investors were largely out of the game thanks to a holiday there.
Investors looked through the minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting but Chair Janet Yellen’s speech Wednesday had already superseded them to some extent. Still, the opacity of inflaiton data and the difficulty of translating it into monetary policy was frontr and centre for both releases. The ASX 200 ended flat with South Korea’s Kospi off just 0.02%. Stocks were also lower in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Foreign exchange markets were a torpid affair to with the US Dollar broadly defensive as Fed policymakers again worried about the weakness of inflation. This is hardly a new lament, however.
Crude oil prices fell back, the US benchmark having hit two-year highs the session before on the closure of the Keystone Pipeline after a spill. This is one of the largest pipelines between Canada and the US, bringing about 600,000 barrels south per day. Prices were underpinned to some extent by news of another US inventory drawdown.
Gold prices slipped too, reportedly on a little profit taking. The yellow metal had risen about 1% in the previous session thanks to those Fed inflation worries.
The rest of Thursday will bring Purchasing Managers Index data out of Germany and France along with UK Gross Domestic Product data and the official account of the European Central Bank’s last monetary-policy meeting.
--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
Contact and follow David on Twitter:@DavidCottleFX
