From Marc to Market:
Overview: The bout of profit-taking in equities continued today, and most markets in Asia Pacific and Europe are lower. China's markets re-opened but struggled to sustain early gains. However, the Shanghai Composite rose by about 0.5%, and a smaller increase was recorded in Taiwan and an even smaller gain in Australia. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is trading lower for the third consecutive session and closed the gap created by Monday's sharply higher. US shares are trading lower. Benchmark 10-year yields are edging up in Europe, though Italian bonds are resilient. The US 10-year Treasury yield is around 1.28%, off the 1.33% high seen yesterday, amid reports that several banks are recommending unwinding the curve steepening trade. The dollar is seeing yesterday's gains pared against both major and emerging market currencies. Sterling is leading the way and is approaching the $1.3950 area seen two days ago, which was the highest since April 2018. Indonesia's central bank cut its key seven-day reverse repo rate by 25 bp top 3.50% as widely expected, and in Turkey, the central bank kept the one-week repo rate at 17.00%, which was also anticipated. Gold is trying to snap a five-day slide, but rising yields seem to be sapping it. Initial resistance is seen near $1790. April WTI rose to nearly $62.30 earlier today, a new high, but has pulled back within yesterday's range when it recorded a high near $61.75. The price of WTI has fallen once so far this month (last Thursday). It settled last month a little above $52.....MUCH MORE
Asia Pacific
China returned from its extended holiday with little fanfare. The PBOC offered CNY200 bln (~$31 bln) of liquidity via its medium-term lending facility at an unchanged rate of 2.95%. That will help offset loans that are maturing this month. The move does little to ease concerns about the tightness of the PBOC's stance. The PBOC offered CNY20 bln of sever-day repo funds, while CNY280 bln is coming due. The overnight repo rate rose by about 50 bp to around 2.35%, and the seven-day repo rose two basis points to 2.23%.
Australia's employment report was mostly in line with expectations. It created 29.1k jobs, nearly the 30k that the Bloomberg survey (median ) forecast. The social restrictions may be behind the slippage in the participation rate (66.1% vs. 66.2%), helping the unemployment rate fall to 6.4% from 6.6%. The breakdown of jobs showed 59k full-time posts (35.7k in December), while part-time positions fell by nearly 30k. As the pandemic struck last year, Australia lost about 380k full-time jobs, and with the January report, it has gained back a little more than 300k. Separately, Google struck a deal with News Corp and seems to be positioning itself to remain in Australia after threatening to leave. On the other hand, Facebook has moved to restrict news sharing in Australia and is resisting the government efforts to force compensation to news sources....
