Market Update – 16th April 2018 – Financial Markets Shrug Off Syria Strike And Trade Tensions

Key macro themes from the weekend and therefore likely to filter through this week are Trump’s military strike on Syria along with the ongoing dialogue between China and U.S on international trade. Many would have anticipated that the escalation of events in Syria over the weekend would have a detrimental impact on financial markets but looking at futures markets this morning and we actually see a sea of green with the Aussie Dollar, Bitcoin, commodities and stocks all generally higher or set to open higher. And this may all be as a result of the worlds global growth super power China who according to a front page story on Bloomberg appear to have “tuned out all the background noise and powered ahead in the first quarter. According to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey, growth maintained a 6.8 percent pace, well ahead of a target for about 6.5 percent expansion this year.” This news and hopefully easing tensions between Trump and China on tariffs could well provide commodities another leg up in 2018 particularly if China keeps powering ahead with its infrastructure plans which include countless new high speed rail lines, ports and roads through the old silk road – a theme many China bears have failed to fully grasp.

U.S retail sales are released tonight at 10.30pm but other than that there is a real vacuum of data announcements until later in the week when we will see Chinese GDP figures and Aussie employment numbers on Thursday.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7769

AUD/GBP – 0.5456

AUD/EUR – 0.6300

AUD/NZD – 1.0571

AUD/JPY – 83.533

USD/BTC – $8,294

OTHER MARKETS: 

All Ords (XAO) – 5,924

Gold – A$1726/oz

Silver –  A$21.36/oz

WTI – US$67.03/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

USD – Retail Sales at 10.30pm