Summary:

• Majority of the global stock markets remains closed due to holiday

• Bitcoin is swinging up and down in the vicinity of $7k mark

• Russian equities outperform their European peers in Q1

Majority of the equity markets remain closed today due to Good Friday. Liquidity on the FX market is limited as well thus volatility may be increased. Bitcoin came under pressure to trade below $7k handle. CAD and USD are among the biggest laggards from the G10 basket while SEK and CHF outperform their peers.

Grains gained momentum during their last trading day this quarter after the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed promising estimates with regard to planned sowing of corn and soybean. Wheat prices benefited from the report too as it was not so hideous as it seemed to be on the face of it.

Most of stock markets are closed today due to Good Friday albeit currencies as well as their digital counterparts are trading on a normal basis. Therefore, it needs to pay more attention to the latter especially to Bitcoin which has seen an incredible jump in volatility of late.

Shaky equity markets have started to weigh on rate hike expectations in the US, sending bond prices higher. However, financial markets is one thing and the domestic economy is another thing. The Fed will pay attention to the labour market and wage pressures and act accordingly so the NFP report is anticipated.

It’s Good Friday therefore most of stock markets around the globe are closed today except the Japanese one which is benefiting from decent results seen on Wall Street Thursday. The NIKKEI is adding 1.1% at the time of writing starting the last trading day this quarter with a bullish gap. In terms of currencies there have been no moves of note but the greenback is losing a bit more than 0.15% in early very thin trading.

Our analysis of three Q1 top moving European stock benchmarks can be found here.