Adobe Earnings, EU Industrial Production, U.S. Retail Sales

The EUR/USD pair continues to move slowly but steadily to the upside with the rate reaching as high as 1.075 by Wednesday morning. The common European currency also started to recover some lost ground against other majors like the Australian dollar (AUD) and the pound sterling (GBP), though after the weak performance at the beginning of the week is still seen weaker than those other majors on a weekly basis.

U.S. consumer price index (CPI) data published on Tuesday was mostly in line with expectations that the year-on-year rate of inflation reduced from 6.4% to 6.0% and the core CPI declined ever so slightly from 5.5% to 5.4%. French CPI data published by Wednesday morning on the other hand was revised from the 6.2% rate of year-on-year inflation according to the preliminary release two weeks ago to 6.3%. In the month before inflation was estimated at just 5.9%.

On Thursday Italy will also release its CPI data. Probably even more important could be then the monetary policy decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) as analysts expect that another 50 bp rate hike is likely.

Gold prices retraced from their recent high and declined again below the $1,900-threshold. On a weekly basis gold remains still in the green, while fundamentally the reversal in rates might have affected the market to some extent. The U.S. dollar held overall steady but rates like the 10-year U.S. T-Note yield rapidly increased from their low earlier this week at around 3.5%, towards levels closer to 3.7%. In theory higher rates could have a bearish impact on non-yielding assets like gold because of the rising opportunity costs of holding assets which by themselves do not generate any positive yield.

A similar market move could also have been observed in the platinum market, while silver prices retraced only ever so slightly and are still way up on a weekly basis. Palladium prices meanwhile continued to push higher and at times surpassed the $1,500-mark.

Despite the recovery in other markets, the downside move in oil prices continued with WTI crude oil reaching a new year-to-date low just as a barrel traded at times below $71. Data released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) in its weekly statistical bulletin showed that crude oil inventories increased by almost 1.2 million barrels over the past week, though inventories of products like gasoline and distillates were down by 4.6 million barrels and 2.9 million barrels respectively.

As usual on Wednesday the Energy Information Administration (EIA) also publishes similar types of statistics in its weekly petroleum status report.

Stock markets recovered from the slump at the start of the week and the US 500 index traded again clearly above the 3,900-threshold and on track to make at least small gains on a weekly basis. In particular bank stocks (US Banks ETF +2.15%) started to recover after sizable losses over the previous days given the confidence crisis affecting especially smaller banks.

Meta Platforms (+7.24%) was on Tuesday the single best-performing component of the NASDAQ Composite Index just as the social media company announced a second round of layoffs, now expecting to reduce the workforce to the tune of ten thousand as well as cancel hiring plans for about five thousand positions and scrapping lower priority projects.

United Airlines (-5.41%) was meanwhile one of the weakest-performers with the stock price down to a new two-months low as the airline warned of the impact of slowing demand growth and at the same time also higher fuel costs.

On Wednesday Adobe is set to publish its quarterly results, followed by Dollar General, Hello Group and FedEx on Thursday.