Stocks in Asia edged higher with U.S. equity futures as earning continued to roll in. The dollar maintained this week’s decline. Nasdaq futures climbed after Alphabet Inc. reported better-than-expected sales. On Wednesday night, U.S. equities saw a volatile session Tuesday with mega-cap tech stocks retreating amid a slide in consumer confidence and as more companies withdrew earnings guidance. But the optimism in the morning shrugged the risk aversion off and is likely to keep the risk sentiment up for today. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases in the U.S. passed the 1 million mark and deaths topped 58,000, double the toll in Italy. France plans to begin reopening shops on May 11, Spain will transition out of its strict virus lockdown in four phases through the end of June.
Oil climbed back after losing more than a quarter of its value over the past two days with volatility likely to continue. But the oversupply issue is still keeping its cap. Price of the futures could drop to negative territory again as investors and a major fund exit the June contract. The API reported U.S. crude inventories at Cushing rose by 2.49 million barrels last week while UBS predicted the key storage hub may reach its capacity limit next month.
Gold is trading sideways amid a more stable backdrop in financial and commodity markets and the VIX in decline. Fundamentally, not much has changed in the past days but there is a general optimism that the darkest hour in Covic19 is over as most countries plan to reopen. The general bullish sentiment in the stock market is putting a cap on the price of gold and for further upside, gold might need some big rate cut surprise from either the Fed or ECB in coming days.
Copper is still on the surge, buoyed by the bullish sentiment from the COVC-19 front as well as the stimulus plan given by the central banks. The stimulus out there is coming at more than US$10 trillion, and most likely this money will go into modern infrastructure, which will boost the demand of the red metal. With the crude oil also stabilizing, copper could see further upside in the near term.
Technical & Trade views
USDCAD (Intraday bias: bullish above 1.3996)
We remain bearish as price is approaching 1st resistance, which happens to be where the 38.2% fibonacci retracement is, and price is likely to reverse off 1st resistance towards 1st support.
UKOIL (Intraday bias: bearish below 21.74)
We remain bearish as price is approaching 1st resistance, which happens to be where the 38.2% fibonacci retracement is, and price is likely to reverse off 1st resistance towards 1st support.
XAUUSD ( Intraday bias: bearish below 1718.42)
We turned bearish as price broke below the downside confirmation at 1718.42 where the 61.8% fibonacci retracement and horizontal overlap resistance are. Price is likely to drop towards 1st support at 1642.36 where the 38.2% fibonacci retracement and horizontal overlap support are.
XCUUSD ( Intraday bias: bullish above 2.3514)
We remain bullish as price is likely to break above upside confirmation, which happens to be previous horizontal swing high. Price is likely to go higher towards 1st resistance at 2.4152 where the previous overlap resistance is.
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Desmond Leong runs an award-winning research firm (The Technical Analyst finalists 2018/19/20 for Best FX and Equity Research) advising banks, brokers and hedge funds. Backed by a team of CFA, CMT, CFTe accredited traders, he takes on the market daily using a combination of technical and fundamental analysis.