Asian shares plunged on Monday amid worries about property price curbs in China after the State Council stated last week that the government could increase required down payments and loan rates for buyers of second homes. In the US, after the stalemate of Friday meeting, President Obama signaled that he’s willing compromise so as to end sequester which began on March 1. White House senior economic official Gene Sperling stated that the President is “reaching out to Democrats who understand we have to make serious progress on long-term entitlement reform and Republicans who realize that if we had that type of entitlement reform, they'd be willing to have tax reform that raises revenues to lower the deficit". Meanwhile, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said he would seek to pass a "continuing resolution" to fund the government through September 30.
This week comes 5 major central bank meetings. The RBA is expected to maintain its cash rate at 3% on Tuesday as policymakers awaited more signals about the economic developments. The ECB and the BOE would likely also leave the monetary policies unchanged. For the BOC meeting, a rate hike is not likely to be adopted this month. In a testimony before the House of Commons Finance Committee, Mark Carney stated that tightening is "less imminent" due to "more constructive evolution of imbalances in the household sector". Haruhiko Kuroda, Abe’s nominee to be the next BOJ governor pledged that the central bank would achieve the CPI target of 2% with 2 years. According to Kuroda, “if the BOJ were to ease policy, it would therefore be most natural for it to increase government debt purchases and target longer-dated bonds". Yet, the central bank would also “scrutinize market developments at the time, as well as the potential drawbacks".
Commitments of Traders:
With the exception of natural gas, speculators were bearish towards the energy complex in the week ended February 26. Net length for crude oil futures slipped -21 820 contracts to 236 098. Net length for heating oil dropped -15 526 contracts to 26 721 while that for gasoline slid -1 668 contracts to 92 709. Net short for natural gas fell -9 629 contracts to 136 473.
With the exception of gold, speculators were bearish towards precious metals during the week. Net length for gold future was up +12 948 contracts to 116 599 while that for silver futures fell -4 719 contracts to 21 737. For PGMs, net length for platinum dropped -7 344 contracts to 41 404 while that for palladium slid -1 096 contracts to 25 104.
Latest Analysis from this Author
Gold Weekly Technical Outlook (Saturday, 16 March 2013 10:05 ET)Silver Weekly Technical Outlook (Saturday, 16 March 2013 10:05 ET)Crude Oil Weekly Technical Outlook (Saturday, 16 March 2013 10:05 ET)Natural Gas Weekly Technical Outlook (Saturday, 16 March 2013 10:04 ET)Weekly Fundamentals - WTI- Brent Spread Narrowed o... (Saturday, 16 March 2013 02:38 ET)Strong US Data Sent Shares to New Highs (Friday, 15 March 2013 01:03 ET)Economic Calendar 3/15/13 (Thursday, 14 March 2013 22:13 ET)IEA Lowered Global Oil Demand Growth Forecast for ... (Thursday, 14 March 2013 08:50 ET)Crude Weakened on Inventory Increase (Wednesday, 13 March 2013 23:14 ET)Economic Calendar 3/14/13 (Wednesday, 13 March 2013 23:12 ET)
No comments:
Post a Comment