Japan intervened in the FX market — report Trump: Iran is dying to make a deal with us US initial jobless claims 189K vs 215K estimate US Q1 advance GDP +2.0% vs +2.3% expected US March PCE inflation +3.5% y/y vs +3.5% expected Canada February GDP +0.2% vs +0.2% expected ECB…
Japan intervened in the FX market — report Trump: Iran is dying to make a deal with us US initial jobless claims 189K vs 215K estimate US Q1 advance GDP +2.0% vs +2.3% expected US March PCE inflation +3.5% y/y vs +3.5% expected Canada February GDP +0.2% vs +0.2% expected ECB rate decision: No change, as expected ECB’s Lagarde: Most measures of longer term inflation stand around 2% Pakistani officials say they expect new Iran proposal this week – report AI infrastructure spending is the largest non-war project in human history Euro rises as report says the ECB very likely to hike in June Trump considers plan to deepen the blockade on Iran with allies – report Markets: S&P 500 up 1.2% to record high Russell 2000 up 2.1% WTI crude down $1.82 to $105.07 Gold up $73 to $4615 US 10-year yields down 2.2 bps to 4.39% JPY leads, USD lags The big question today: Were the moves position squaring ahead of month end, or a better view on the war? Many of the big moves were reversals of the trend this month, or at least of the past week.
That’s a move that looks like a ‘peace’ trade but there wasn’t any (public) indications of a breakthrough on Iran, or even talks. There are reports that Iran is readying another proposal and the usual rumors about peace but overall it was quiet on the Iran front. The big news in earlier trade was the surge in the yen.
There was some pointed and harsh talk about intervention beforehand but it wasn’t clear if it was actually intervention, a rate check or the strong words that caused the drop. A report from Nikkei confirmed it was intervention but the pair traded mostly sideways in New York. That wasn’t the case for the euro as it initially declined on the ECB decision and press conference because there wasn’t the expected strong hawkish bias.