Wall Street dropped overnight ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's interview on Tuesday. The interview is expected to solidify further rate increases with Fed Bank of Atlanta President saying the strong Job numbers report in January raises the possibility of further rate increases. Newmont down 4.51% after announcing a bid for Newcrest Mining. Geopolitical tensions persist, with the US planning to impose a 200% tariff on Russian aluminum and a decline in US-listed Chinese shares due to Washington's shooting down of a Chinese surveillance balloon.
The Dow Jones was down 35 points (-0.01%). At best it was up 37 points, and at worst it was down 242 points. The NASDAQ dropped 1%, and the S&P 500 finished down 0.61%. In Europe, Stoxx 50 -1.23%, UK FTSE -0.82%, France's CAC –1.34%, German DAX -0.84%. SPI Futures are up 1 point (+0.01%) this morning, holding steady before the RBA's interest rate decision today.
Copper prices fell due to weak demand in China and a stronger US dollar. Copper is down 1.2% at $8,869 a tonne, with concerns about demand recovery in China and manufacturing activity still shrinking. Inventories in LME-approved warehouses remain low, but discounts for cash metal suggest the market isn’t concerned about availability. Zinc down 3.31%, Aluminium fell 1.38%, Lead gained 0.52%, Nickel down 4.8% and Tin down 4.97%. Gold price rose 0.17% to $1868.7 due to its safe-haven appeal as economic slowdown worries persist, after a stronger dollar and higher Treasury yields pushed prices to a one-month low. WTI crude up 0.97%, and Brent rose 1.61% as the European ban on seaborn imports and price caps for Russian oil products came into effect on Sunday. Bitcoin steady up 0.69%.
RBA today at 2.30pm. MQG and TCL the results focus.
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