Macro Roundup (Apr 3)

Published: Apr 3, 2020 08:55

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Oil prices skyrocketed on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said that Saudi Arabia and Russia could soon ease pressure on oil.

SHANGHAI, Apr 3 (SMM) – This is a roundup of global macroeconomic news last night and what is expected in the day ahead.

Last night

Oil prices skyrocketed on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said that Saudi Arabia and Russia could soon ease pressure on oil, ending a price war that has contributed to crude’s massive plunge. A Bloomberg report that China will start buying oil for its emergency reserves also gave a boost to oil prices.

That soothed investors who were digesting a record number of US jobless claims released earlier in the session, bolstering stocks on Wall Street and forcing the US dollar to give up some of its earlier gains.

LME base metals, except for tin and lead, closed higher overnight. Copper jumped 1.6% on the day to lead the gains, zinc climbed 0.9%, aluminium rose 0.6% and nickel advanced 0.4%. Lead shed 0.2% and tin fell 0.5%.

The SHFE kept its night trading session suspended.

Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen Thursday that he had spoken to President Putin and Saudi Crown Prince and expected them to announce an oil production cut of 10 million barrels and could be up to 15 million.

The US Labor Department reported that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits spiked to a record-breaking 6.648 million for the week ending March 28 and that the prior week’s figure was revised higher to 3.307 million claims from 3.283 million, suggesting that the damage brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic to the US economy is getting worse.

A separate report from Challenger Gray & Christmas also provided some clues on the pandemic damage, saying that planned job cuts in the US increased by 292% from February's 56,660 to 222,228 in March.

The total number of infection cases around the world crossed 1 million overnight, with 236,339 in the US alone, according to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University.

Day ahead

The Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China for March is set to be released at 9:45 am, while US nonfarm payroll report for March is slated for release at 20:30 pm. All times are in Beijing time.

Other economic data slated for release today include the eurozone’s retail sales data for February, and US ISM nonmanufacturing index for March.

Macroeconomics

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