Big-Tech leads US Stocks lower, Gold slides again, Bonds bid ahead of CPI

Major US indexes were lower in in a choppy session on Wednesday as traders position themselves for today’s pivotal CPI reading out of the US. Tech led the declines with the Nasdaq being the worst performing index, dropping 162 points (-1.17%), the NDX100 closing below its 50 Day MA for the first time since early March. AI exuberance seeming to lose steam with industry bellwether SMCI tumbling after releasing earnings, dragging down heavyweight NVDA almost 5%.

FX Markets

It was a quiet session in FX with most majors fairly flat on Wednesday ahead of today’s US CPI which is likely to see a more exciting session on Thursday. Highlights were JPY still grinding lower, USDJPY pushing to test the August highs and continuing its seemingly inevitable march to test the BoJ resolve at the 145 mark, though today’s CPI will play a big part in that in the near term.

AUDUSD drifted lower on the sour risk sentiment, though still stubbornly holding on to the major support at the big figure at 0.6500, we could see a serious test of AUD bulls resolve at this level if US CPI comes in hot later today.

Commodities

Continuing high yields and a USD grinding higher saw Gold continue its downtrend, XAUUSD pushing lower through the 1920 level, into the chop range we saw it trade in June/July. 1902 the next major support level, and from a technical point of view, fresh air below that, 1902 will be a critical level to watch.

Crude Oil surged again on Wednesday, breaking through the major resistance at 83.68 and hitting highs not seen since November ’22. The Daily RSI moving to an extreme overbought level.

Today’s calendar is dominated by the much awaited US CPI, while there are a multiple tier one US releases between now and the next FOMC meeting, this will be one of the big ones to shape the markets expectations of the Feds move at that meeting, big volatility across all markets is very likely on its release.