US index futures are trading flat to down 0.2% as traders pause to catch their breath at the end of a busy week and position for next week’s round of mega cap earnings reports. Overseas, Hong Kong rallied 1.8% and the Dax is up 0.4%, most other major markets have been quiet.
Overnight, the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25% to 0.50% as had been widely anticipated. The US Dollar has backed off a bit on this news, falling 0.4%-0.5% relative to the Loonie, Euro, and Pound. Precious metals are taking advantage of USD weakness with Gold up 0.9% and Silver up 1.9%.
With this week’s deep freeze fading and temperatures returning to seasonal for now, Natural Gas is down 3.1% today. In other commodity action, Crude Oil and Copper are both up 0.5%.
Flash PMI reports have come out from several countries overnight. Overall, results from Europe have been better than expected, Japan was worse than expected, and Australia was mixed. US Flash Manufacturing PMI (street 49.6) and Flash Services PMI (street 56.5) are due at 9:45 am EST.
Highlights of overnight and morning earnings include American Express* ($3.04 vs street $3.03) and Texas Instruments ($1.30 vs street $1.21). Next week the other credit card companies report but the main events are several of the Magnificent Seven including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Meta Platforms, and Tesla, and Big Oil names like Exxon and Chevron.
*Shares of American Express are held in some portfolios managed by SIA Wealth Management.