Hello traders and welcome to a new week of trading! We are entering the final days of April and will soon kick off May, with one of the major highlights being the Non-Farm Payrolls report scheduled for this Friday.
As for today's session, the calendar is quiet, with no Tier 1 data expected. However, the entire week ahead looks busy and packed with important economic releases and earnings reports, so traders should prepare for an uptick in volatility starting tomorrow.
On the earnings front, Monday is relatively calm, with no major releases scheduled. Bigger players like Visa and Coca-Cola will report tomorrow on Tuesday, which should bring more attention back to corporate earnings.
Turning to the markets, the European session started positively with European indices climbing higher. On the other hand, American futures are slightly lower at the beginning of the day. This could set up some interesting divergence dynamics later when the U.S. market opens.
On the forex market, we can see a visible weakness in antipodean currencies – the Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar are both significantly weaker. Meanwhile, the Japanese yen and the American dollar are leading the gains, showing strong performance early in the session.
Looking at commodities, there are important technical signals brewing. Gold and silver are very close to triggering major sell signals after last week's notable reversal. As for oil, after a successful previous week, the commodity is now under pressure and moving lower at the start of this week.
To sum up: Monday looks like a quiet technical session but could set the tone for the days ahead. It will be interesting to see if today's moves will establish the first real direction for the week as we head toward major economic reports and earnings announcements.