The dollar is edging lower with falling yields
Wall Street stocks were mostly lower overnight as investors expressed worries about the Delta coronavirus variant spread. Also, market players looked ahead to U.S. jobs data due out on Friday for signs of the health of the economy. The S&P 500 slipped 0.18%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.28%, and the Nasdaq Composite added less than 0.1%.
In Asia, equities slipped on Tuesday amid virus-related concerns along with Chinese regulation measures that continue to rattle investor confidence. Australia’s S&P/ASX200 was off 0.23% after the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to go ahead with tapering its bond buys. The Shanghai Composite Index shed nearly 0.5% and the Kospi in South Korea gained 0.44%.
European markets opened mixed, with investors expressing a cautious tone amid earnings, rising virus cases, and Chinese regulation. The pan-European Stoxx 600 hovered around the flat-line in early trade. In individual stocks, BP beat second-quarter earnings to report an underlying replacement cost profit of $2.8 billion, sending its stock nearly 3% higher following the report.
Meanwhile, the dollar is edging lower with falling yields. Returns on the benchmark 10-year notes dropped below 1.20%, sending the greenback lower as the US ISM manufacturing PMI for July disappointed with a score of 59.5. Against this backdrop, EURUSD stays afloat marginally below 1.1900 but still lacks the momentum to challenge this immediate barrier. On the downside, the common currency continues to derive support from the 20-DMA, today in the 1.1820 region.
