market:
- Gold climbs $5 to $1916
- US 10-Year Yield Falls 3.9bps to 4.2000%
- WTI crude rises 38 cents to $80.21
- S&P 500 rises 28 points to 4434
- Australian dollar leads, Japanese yen lags
A British holiday on Monday set the mood for the session. In Europe, there was some dollar buying in the early stages, but it soon reversed, and after that it leveled off steadily and the dollar fell overall. The mood was constructive, but with choppy waves and lack of confidence, it definitely felt like a long weekend in late August.
Several U.S. Treasury auctions were in the spotlight as potential market movers, but both were close to what the market was looking for, despite their sheer size. Yields ended the day near lows, which led to some dollar selling towards the end.
Shares performed well throughout the day after China launched a stimulus package on the stock market. I’m skeptical of the recent bull market foundations, but it’s true, risk trading tends to go up in a low summer volume environment.
Gold and oil both surged briefly, but mostly bounced back in volatile trading. This was largely due to China’s optimism, though it didn’t really spill over into commodity currencies as much as the Australian dollar did.
