Macro Roundup (Feb 21)

SHANGHAI, Feb 21 (SMM) – This is a roundup of global macroeconomic news last night and what is expected in the day ahead.

Last night

The US dollar surged almost 2% on Tuesday against the yen, reaching its highest in almost 10 months, and climbed to near three-year highs against the euro, on the back of eased coronavirus fears and optimistic prospects for the US economy.
LME base metals fell across the board last night, with zinc leading the losses with a drop of 1.2%. Nickel slipped 0.9%, copper and aluminium declined 0.8%, lead fell 0.7%, and tin shed 0.2%. 
Oil prices held on to gains on Thursday after weekly data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed that US crude supplies edged up by 400,000 barrels for the week ended February 14. 
The EIA data also showed a supply decline of 2 million barrels for gasoline, while distillate stocks fell by 600,000 barrels.
The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits rose slightly in mid-February, but the rate of layoffs in the US economy is still extremely and shows no sign of rising.
Initial jobless claims edged up by 4,000 to 210,000 in the week ended February 15, the government said Thursday. The figures are seasonally adjusted.
German consumer sentiment showed a "mixed picture" with little change in February, according to the monthly consumer climate study published by market research institute GfK on Thursday.
Based on around 2,000 interviews conducted on behalf of the European Commission, GfK forecasted that its forward-looking index showed a slight decrease from 9.9 in February to 9.8 for March.
"The consumer climate has been unable to continue the previous month's positive trend," said Rolf Buerkl, consumer expert at GfK.
"A largely stable employment situation means that employees will enjoy an increase in earnings" this year as well, albeit not quite as high as in previous years. Overall, "economic expectations appear to be making a slow recovery," GfK noted.
The eurozone consumer confidence for February remains negative at -6.6, compared to -8.1 in the previous month, but the index is better than expectations at -8.2.
China's new yuan-denominated loans jumped to a record 3.34 trillion yuan in January, exceeding analysts' forecast, data released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) showed Thursday.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, reached 202.31 trillion yuan, up 8.4% year on year at the end of January.
Total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, stood at 256.36 trillion yuan at the end of January, said the PBOC.
In January alone, TSF was at 5.07 trillion yuan, up from 2.103 trillion yuan in December, also beating analysts' forecast.
China has been making efforts to bring down overall financing costs for small and micro-businesses in recent years. During the current coronavirus battle, more measures will be rolled out to help small businesses survive.

Day ahead

Key economic data slated for release today include the Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' indexes (PMIs) for February in the US, Germany and the eurozone, eurozone’s consumer price index (CPI) for January, and the US existing home sales for January.