Fed`s surprise, coronavirus chronicles, ADP numbers

The main event of yesterday was the Fed’s decision to urgently reduce the rate by 0.5%. The central bank did not wait on March 18 and caught many by surprise. The reaction of the financial markets as a whole seemed logical: the US stock market went up, the dollar was falling, gold was growing. The whole question is whether these trends will continue. We practically do not doubt gold and put on its further growth. The US stock market may well grow by a further wave of optimism by a few percents. But the closer he gets closer to historical highs, the stronger will be our desire to sell. The dollar will be able to take revenge on Friday, but more on that below.

In the meantime, we traditionally continue to review the news from epidemic fronts. The epidemic in China has virtually disappeared (130 new cases), but in the world, everything is in full swing (almost 2000 new cases per day).

G7 countries, meanwhile, held an emergency meeting at which they firmly decided to confront the economic consequences of the epidemic.

Inspired by this news, as well as information about a possible massive easing of monetary policies around the world (the Central Bank of Australia also lowered the rate yesterday and thereby confirmed reasonable expectations), investors again breathed a sigh of relief and rushed to buy cheaper assets. We traditionally do not share this optimism and consider it clearly premature. The consequences are just beginning to manifest. So in the next month, depressing news will be enough.

On the foreign exchange market yesterday there was a certain return of common sense. In terms of the fact that the euro stopped growing at the end of the day (even against the background of information about the Fed’s rate reduction of 0.5%), the pound seemed to have found some ground under its feet. All the attention of traders is focused on the first rand of trade negotiations between the EU and the UK. The results will not be earlier than Thursday. So far, we generally consider all this to be nothing more than noise, which can only give the best entry points. Really, nothing will be solved now, which means you should not worry about anything. Recall that our position on the pound is medium-term purchases. Justification - The EU and the UK will eventually be able to agree again.

As for the euro, it seems that there was a less clear explanation for its growth in recent days. In addition to the classic for almost any strong movement of triggering stop loss and buy-stop, analysts call the curtailment of the trade due to the coronavirus epidemic as the main reason for the sharp strengthening of the euro against the dollar. For those who are not in the know, we explain that the ultra-low rates in the Eurozone made it possible to borrow money there and invest them in markets with higher returns (for example, the USA). Which naturally led to a depreciation of the euro. Curtailment is marked by opposite trends, respectively, the euro strengthened. Rumors that the Fed will sharply reduce the rate in March and may reduce the rate even later in 2020 provoked the start of the process of curtailing the trade, which was especially clearly reflected in the EURUSD pair.

News about the epidemic has recently monopolized the information space so much that it’s easy to miss important news that does not have the word coronavirus or something like that in the headline.

We mean that on Friday statistics on the US labor market will be published. This news is traditionally one of the main ones for financial markets. Considering how sensitive markets are now to any deviations from the norm, these data are of increased importance. But the numbers on the NFP will be published only on Friday, but for now, today we are waiting for data from ADP.