• The final trading day of the week has been rather uneventful. As the majority of the markets was already closed for Easter holidays, liquidity conditions were very thin
• Indices from Asia-Pacific traded higher today - Nikkei gained 0.5%, Kospi traded flat and Nifty 50 jumped 0.9%. Indices from China traded 0.4-1.0% higher
• Trading ranges on the major FX pairs were narrow today. AUD and NZD are the best performing G10 currencies at press time, while CHF and CAD lag the most
• Major cryptocurrencies trade slightly lower today - Bitcoin drops 1.3%, Ethereum declines 0.9% and Dogecoin trades 1.5% lower
• Fed Chair Powell said that today's PCE reading for February was in-line with expectations, but Fed wants to be more confident before cutting rates as cutting too soon would be very disruptive
• US PCE inflation accelerated from 2.4 to 2.5% YoY in February (exp. 2.4% YoY), while core PCE stayed unchanged at 2.8% YoY (exp. 2.8% YoY)
• French CPI inflation slowed from 3.0 to 2.3% YoY in March (exp. 2.6% YoY)
• Italian CPI inflation accelerated from 0.8 to 1.3% YoY in March (exp. 1.4% YoY)
• Core CPI inflation in Japanese Tokyo area slowed from 2.5 to 2.4% YoY in March (exp. 2.4% YoY)
• Japanese retail sales were 4.6% YoY higher in February (exp. 2.8% YoY), while industrial production declined 3.4% YoY (exp. -2.7% YoY)
• Japanese unemployment rate jumped from 2.4 to 2.6% in February (exp. 2.4%)