UK Inflation, API Oil Data, ECB Meeting, Fed Chair at Congress

As the dollar rebounded from the session lows on Tuesday and further appreciated over the course of Wednesday night, the EUR/USD pair declined by Wednesday morning closer towards the 1.05-level. The euro itself remained fairly neutral to other major currencies with a small weekly decline seen in the EUR/CHF and EUR/GBP pairs, while the EUR/AUD, EUR/NZD and EUR/JPY are up since the beginning of this week.

Relatively few major data releases have been scheduled for the first half of this week, while more indicators like the German and eurozone services and manufacturing PMI numbers are expected on Thursday.

Airline stocks like Airfrance KLM and Lufthansa settled lower on Tuesday, with especially the former share price reversing significantly after a strong performance on Monday, though the price was still up by more than three per cent compared to the closing levels of last week.

Delivery Hero (-6.20%) significantly underperformed after a strong run on Monday, despite it being the first day the stock was removed from the DAX index and instead included in the less-prestigious MDAX index.

Car manufacturers performed relatively strongly with Stellantis gaining close to three per cent over the course of the trading session, while German manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen were up in a range between one and two per cent.

After a fairly stable prices for oil during the first two days of this week, oil prices started again declining during the night hours on Wednesday with the price of oil hitting a new one month low as a barrel of WTI crude was traded at times in the futures markets below $104.

Due to a holiday in the U.S. on Monday, the release of the weekly oil inventory data will be one day later than usual with the American Petroleum Institute (API) publishing its weekly statistical bulletin on Wednesday and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) releasing its weekly data on crude oil, gasoline and distillate stockpiles on Wednesday.

Major stock market indices like the US 500 and the US Tech 100 traded up by well over one per cent as the U.S. stock markets reopened following a long weekend due to a public holiday on Monday. These gains were mostly realised in the first hour of stock trading that day as afterwards index valuations were gradually coming down with the sell-off intensifying in the night hours on Wednesday.

Meta Platforms (-4.20%) was one of the worst-performing blue chip stocks on Tuesday ending the day among the worst three performing S&P 500 component and being by a wide margin the worst one among the NASDAQ Composite Index, followed at a distance by Netflix (-2.82%).

Tesla (+9.24%) was one of the best-performing equities in the index. The company clarified on its recent workforce reduction plans, indicating that it only seeks a net reduction of the workforce by 3.5%. Other companies involved in the electric vehicle market like Rivian (+10.84%), Nio (+8.70%) and Lucid Motors (+7.40%) also outperformed the overall market index.