(Kitco News) – Gold and silver are starting the first trading day of the week mixed. Gold has moved under flat trading at $1725/oz while silver is just above flat at $25.90/oz.
It was much of the same in equity markets overnight, the Nikkei 225 (0.17%) and ASX (0.09%) moved higher but the Shanghai Composite dropped 0.96%.
In FX markets the greenback was stronger against all the other major currencies but the NZD. NZD/USD traded 0.27% in the black while the worst performer was AUD/USD which fell 0.30%.
In the rest of the commodities complex, base metals traded well overnight. Nickel moved 1.19% higher, Aluminium traded 0.66% in the black and zinc moved 0.74% in positive territory.
There was some data from China overnight, year to date industrial production rose 35.1% y/y vs the expected of 30%, retail sales also beat expectations to print at 33.8% y/y (expected 32%).
There was a small sell-off in Bitcoin overnight as the were some reports the Indian Government are looking to propose a ban on the digital currency. BTC/USD moved from a high of 60,601 to trade at around 58,153 this morning.
As many nations are questioning the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine the firm said ” there is no evidence its coronavirus vaccine increases the risk of blood clots”. Overnight we also heard that the Netherlands is now the latest nation to suspends use of the vaccine.
There was some weekend news that the BOJ are considering eliminating its ETF buy target. The Japanese central banks has become the top holder of Japanese stocks.
ECB’s Kazaks says faster pace of bond buying is a temporary strategy.
According to Chinese Observers, the meeting this week between China and the US might not lead to any new major significant breakthroughs.
In Germany, it seems like Angela Merkel is losing some ground to the greens. There is some discontent in the nation about her handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Voters in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany’s third-most populous, shifted towards Greens and Liberals. This could see Merkel’s coalition ejected from power there.
Looking ahead to the rest of the session, highlights include Candian manufacturing sales, NY empire manufacturing index and US TIC data.
For your reference, the US and Canada went onto daylight savings over the weekend (clocks forward 1 hour).