Macro Roundup (Feb 2)

SHANGHAI, Feb 2 (SMM) — This is a roundup of global macroeconomic news last night and what is expected today.

The U.S. dollar reached a six-week high on Monday on weakness in the euro, Swiss franc and Japanese yen amid views that the United States has an advantage in growing its economy and vaccinating its population against COVID-19.

The dollar index was up 0.37% to 90.955 in late afternoon trading in New York, just off of levels last seen on Dec. 21.

The moves came on evidence pointing toward a stronger recovery from the coronavirus pandemic for the United States than for other countries.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 229.29 points to close at 30,211.91. The S&P 500 gained 1.6% to end its trading day at 3,773.86 while the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.6% to close at 13,403.39.

Oil prices rose more than 2% on Monday, buoyed by falling U.S. crude inventories and rising winter fuel demand as a one of the worst snowstorms in years hits the U.S. Northeast.

U.S. government data last week showed a 2.3 million-barrel drawdown in stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for crude futures. Another 2.3 million-barrel weekly decline is expected since then, analysts and traders said citing a Wood Mackenzie report.

The U.S. Northeast has been hit by a powerful winter snow storm, pummeling a vast swath stretching from Pennsylvania through New England, causing widespread disruption in New York City and other major urban centers in the region.

The price of silver surged higher on Monday as the Reddit-fueled boom in highly shorted stocks appears to be spilling over into the metals market.

Silver futures rose 8% to at $29.06 an ounce, marking the largest one-day pop in silver on NYMEX since at least 2013. The contracts traded 11% higher at $30.35 an ounce earlier in the day, the highest level since Feb. 15, 2013.

The move higher extended gains for silver and silver-related equities late last week. The iShares Silver Trust, an ETF that retail investors can easily buy that seeks to track the price of silver, rose 8.1% on Monday after popping 6% last week.

Silver mining stocks Coeur Mining and Pan American Silver surged 23.1% and 12.1% respectively on Monday. The two rose 16.9% and 14.7%, respectively, on Thursday and Friday.

The spike in demand for silver appears to be related to retail traders in the Reddit forum WallStreetBets, which has helped drive trading activity in heavily shorted stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment in recent weeks.

On the data front, euro zone unemployment held steady at 8.3% in December, the EU’s statistics office confirmed on Monday. Eurostat said 13.671 million people were unemployed across the common currency bloc in December, up from 13.616 million in November.

Meanwhile British manufacturing grew at its slowest pace for three months in January as Brexit and Covid-19 weighed on orders. The final IHS Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) reading came in at 54.1, down from a spike of 57.5 in December as businesses raced to beat the Jan. 1 Brexit deadline.