A light mean-reversion day – North American session Market wrap for February 24

Log in to today's North American session Market wrap for February 24

Today marked a decent mean-reversion day in Sentiment, with US Indexes and risk assets rebounding in a breather session.

Stock Markets are slowly recovering from the post-IEEPA tariff blocking from the Supreme Court as investors realise it would actually reduce duties for many major exporting nations, including Brazil, India, and especially China, which would see its duties reduced from close to 50% back to the current 15%.

Still, many nations have expressed their concerns, but traders don't look too spooked, at least not yet. Equity markets remain in a tight consolidation range, so the story isn't going to get too bright so easily.

Some geopolitical clouds remain, with US-Iran renewed talks expected on Thursday, where Markets and the World should learn more about what comes next. Will it be War or Diplomacy? Critical days are ahead of us.

Gold did retrace from the lighted ambiance in today's action, but that only allowed Silver, Platinum, and Copper to move higher. Similarly, in commodities, the action remains quite technically confusing. With the swift up-and-down swings, it may still be too early to call for a decisive return to bullishness.

The US Dollar is on the other way remaining very solid in recent action despite the latest themes – A sign for an upside reversal? More on this coming up tomorrow.

Oil has found its floor and ceiling at $66.30, decisively awaiting news on the US-Iran situation. On that aspect, there will be a public address from President Trump this evening in a State of the Union speech at 21:00 ET.

Watch your headlines at the event for anything concerning the political and geopolitical news. The ride should stay bumpy for Markets. Traders should prepare their volatility suits.

Read More:

• Cartel chaos rocks Mexico: USD/MXN outlook as retaliatory violence spikes
• USD/CAD flirts with key confluence level. Can bulls keep up the gains beyond the 1.3728 handle
• Stock Markets hold a tight range in a cloudy picture – Dow Jones and US Index Outlook
• Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) on their way to 2026 lows: Is a double-bottom coming?

Today's session in US Stock Markets allowed Wall Street bulls to take a breather as the tone was started to turn towards some dark days ahead.

Still, the picture is very mixed after Friday's rebond and despite some mean-reversion, investors will still want to see a decisive trend picking up. Uncertainty isn't the Market's best friend.

Asset performance was quite positive towards risk as seen with Equities dominating the picture while Silver and Gold eased from their previous day's rise (Platinum and Copper did rebound however).

The surprising factors really are the US Dollar and US Treasuries, decidedly holding well despite recent political tariff chaos.

With Oil remaining so resilient, it could be a sign of risk-premium priced in the Markets, but it seems that heavy dollar bear positioning could also have its (contrarian) effect.

Yen brought back some action in very dull FX markets. Recent communications between BoJ's Ueda and Japan PM Takaichi have surfaced, with the Prime Minister expressing her disagreement towards further rate hikes. The Japanese Currency is at the bottom of the currency table.

A very different picture from what Markets had been pricing since her sweeping victory in last week's snap elections which could bring back further JPY volatility to the table. The positive risk-on session also didn't help the currency the slightest.

Watch the US Dollar for days ahead.

After a heavy Federal Reserve speech session (with nothing too new arising, many comments on recent Labor Market resilience), traders will get ready for some more global economics.

This evening welcomes the Australian CPI data which will be quintessential to the pricing of further rate hikes for the RBA. Reactions to either beats or misses should be quite extended, while an as-expected release should still provide a small boost in the Aussie Dollar(A RBA Governor Bullock speech is also incoming overnight!)

For the rest of the evening, watch the White House address at 21:00 tonight.

Tomorrow will welcome European Data between German GDP (2:00 A.M.), Eurozone CPI at 5:00 A.M and that's pretty much it in tomorrow's session.

Keep a close eye on sentiment and Middle East news.

Safe Trades!

Follow Elior on Twitter/X for Additional Market News, interactions and Insights @EliorManier