MTS Help Center

- The dollar rebounded against the yen on Friday (Feb 12) as solid US retail sales data and rising oil prices lifted sentiment on global markets after a punishing week.

The dollar rebounded 0.8 per cent to ¥113.25 around 2200 GMT fr om the same time on Thursday. During the Thursday session, it had fallen to ¥110.99, its weakest level since October 2014.

- Consumer sentiment declined in February to a four-month low as declining stock prices and weaker global conditions weighed on Americans’ views of the economy.

The University of Michigan’s preliminary index decreased to 90.7 from 92 in January, a report showed Friday. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey called for 92.3. While sentiment cooled for a second month, so did households’ long-term inflation expectations, which declined to the lowest in records to 1979.

A weakening of sentiment reflected the impact of the recent turmoil in equity markets, fueled by everything from declining oil prices to a dimmer global outlook. At the same time, households were more upbeat about their financial prospects because they expect inflation to remain low.

- U.S. consumer spending regained momentum in January as households ramped up purchases of a variety of goods, in a hopeful sign that economic growth was picking up after slowing to a crawl at the end of 2015.

But the outlook for consumer spending was tempered by another report on Friday showing sentiment among households ebbed in early February. Still, the increase in consumer spending last month underscored the economy's resilience and challenged the view that a recession was looming.

- Negative interest rate policy matters to gold because it would represent a dramatic shift from the current monetary policy plans of the Fed. You'll recall that until now, we've been programmed for the prospect of four Fed rate hikes this year. As economic questions have intensified, investors have increasingly lowered their expectations for the Fed. Indeed, the Fed Chair seemed to imply, as I saw it, that a March rate hike was unlikely at this point.

- Analysts believed that a delay in the U.S. Federal Reserve's rate hike is inevitable due to the instability. Prior to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen's address to the U.S. Congress Wednesday, the U.S. central bank hinted that it could still raise rates in March. In Yellen's testimony to Congress Wednesday, however, the increases would be gradual, so many analysts believe that the next rate hike will occur much later in the year. According to the CMEGroup's Fedwatch tool, the current implied probability of a hike is at 0 percent at the March meeting.

- Japan's economy contracted an annualized 1.4 percent in the final quarter of last year as consumer spending slumped, adding to headaches for policymakers already wary of damage the financial market rout could inflict on a fragile recovery.

- Oil's advance accelerated late Friday morning. West Texas Intermediate crude jumped nearly 12%. Prices found support from comments late Thursday from the United Arabia Emirates' energy minister who said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is willing to cooperate on possible production cuts. The market is taking the comments from the UAE minister "seriously because the UAE is doing an about face," said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. The country was "saying a month ago a cut was going to be over their dead body basically," said Flynn. "Well, maybe hell froze over." March West Texas Intermediate crude CLH6, +10.72% jumped $3.13, or 11.9%, to $29.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, wh ere it was poised to log a weekly loss of about 5.3% on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

- The mood inside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is shifting from mistrust to a growing consensus that a decision must be reached on how to end the global oil price rout, Nigeria's oil minister told Reuters.

Oil prices have slumped by more than 70 percent to near $30 a barrel over the past 18 months as OPEC, led by top producer Saudi Arabia, sought to drive higher-cost producers out of the market by refusing to cut production despite a supply glut.

Reference: Reuters, Bloomberg, Marketwatch, Xinhua, Channelnewsasia