Market Wrap – Tuesday reversal

Today the market continued to reverse some of the moves that were seen during the Monday sessions, specifically the moves in the US dollar and the cryptocurrency market.

Specifically, the EURUSD pair edged higher alongside the GBPUSD pair, while Bitcoin climbed back above the $30,000 as the CME announced a new daily options trading project.

Markets looked past Federal Reserve Bullard’s comments as he gave a Reuters interview. A host of Fed speakers are out this week before the blackout period starts before the May Fed meeting.

Fed Bullard said that the “US recession predictions ignore strength of labour market” and “Not much clear progress on inflation means interest rate needed to continue to rise.”

He added that he “Still sees adequately restrictive policy rate at 5.5% – 5.75% range, bias to hold for longer until inflation contained” and he added “Risk of bank stress causing broad problems seems to have diminished.”

It is clear that Fed Bullard and Feds Waller are both lobbying for multiple rate hikes still to come. As noted the market has brushed off these latest hawkish Fed comments.

CPI data was also released this afternoon Canada, which showed that annual inflation rate in Canada fell to 4.3% in March of 2023, the lowest since August 2021, in line with market expectations and dropping from 5.2% in the previous month amid significant base-year effects for energy costs.

The result was loosely in line with projections from the BoC following its tightening pause, forecasting that inflation will return to 3% by the third quarter. The inflation rate sank for transportation (0.3% vs 3.1% in February), largely due to lower gasoline prices (-13.8%) as the base year started to include the initial economic impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The CPI also decelerated for food (8.9% vs 9.7%), due to lower prices for fruits and fresh vegetables, and shelter (5.4% vs 6.1%), as slower homeowner’s replacement costs (1.7% vs 3.3%) offset higher mortgage rates (26.4% vs 23.9%), in line with the BoC’s rate hikes.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices edged 0.5% higher, picking up from the 0.4% increase in February. The USDCAD pair edged somewhat lower on the release of this CPI report.