Equities trade cautiously after Wall Street dip - 22.5.2023

The Dollar weakening is intact today. The live dollar index data show the ICE US Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, slid 0.3% Friday.

Both EUR/USD and GBP/USD reversed their sliding on Friday as the federal statistics office Destatis data showed German producer prices rose unexpectedly in April. Euro is higher against the Dollar currently while Pound is lower. USD/JPY reversed its advancing on Friday while AUD/USD reversed its sliding with the yen higher against the Greenback currently and the Australian dollar lower.

US stocks indexes futures are mixed currently after closing lower on Friday despite Fed chair Powell’s comment US interest rates might not need to rise as much given the tighter credit conditions from the banking crisis. The three main US stock benchmarks recorded daily losses in the narrow range from 0.14% to 0.33% on Friday while regional bank shares extended losses.

European stock indexes futures are mixed currently after closing higher on Friday led by financial shares. Asian stock indexes futures are mixed today with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index leading gains while China’s central bank kept its key lending rates unchanged after Beijing barred on Sunday US firm Micron from selling memory chips to key domestic industries over security concerns.

Brent is extending losses currently. Oil prices ended lower on Friday while energy services firm Baker Hughes reported active US oil rig count, an indicator of future production, fell by 11 to 575 last week, the biggest weekly drop since September 2021. The US oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) lost 0.3% and is lower currently. Brent declined 0.8% to $75.58 a barrel on Friday. Both benchmarks ended the week with gain around 2%, their first weekly gains in a month.