Summary:
- Congress expected to vote on final GOP tax bill around around 6:30PM GMT
- Stocks and USD mixed after strong housing data
- Bitcoin pulls back on dual blow
- Sharp GDT drop threatens to derail NZD recovery
- Euro gains despite IFO miss
- Technical overview of Oil and Oil.WTI ahead of inventory releases
This evening is expected to see Congress vote on the final GOP tax bill, with Republicans hoping to have the legislature signed by Christmas. The lower House is expected to pass the bill with voting estimated to begin around 6:30PM GMT but it may still run into some opposition in the Senate who will have a vote afterwards. The bill could have a substantial impact on the US500 and USD.
US assets are trading fairly mixed heading into the event with the USD edging higher and stocks a little lower. In terms of economic releases this afternoon the latest data from the US housing market has come in better than expected with both building permits and housing starts beating forecasts.
There’s been a dual blow to Bitcoin today with news from both South Korea and the US weighing on the crytpcurrency. The price of Bitcoin has fallen lower today with the market trading lower by a little more than 4% at the time of writing.
The fortnightly Global Dairy Trade auction has seen its lowest result in several months with a decline of 3.9%. After two large drops in November the prior result showed a small increase and led some to believe the downtrend in prices was potentially over. Today’s result dismisses this notion and the size of the declines seen in 3 of the past 4 auctions shows that their is clearly lower demand for or higher supply of milk.
Irrespective of a slight miss seen in IFO business climate in December the single currency has been unimpressed continuing to march higher. Notice that the prime reason for that increase could stem from a dollar’s side as there are some uncertainties if the Congress is able to pass the tax bill during today’s voting.
Oil benchmarks have been little changed today with both Brent and WTI showing small gains. Tonight sees the API inventory data released before tomorrow’s more widely viewed DOE equivalent. A technical overview of both markets can be found here ahead of these events.