Choppy waters for stocks ahead of US inflation report, small businesses are hurting, euro falls to parity against dollar, bitcoin below USD 20k

Stocks might be struggling for direction ahead of a pivotal inflation report, but global growth concerns continue to make rates comes in as the Treasury curve inversion gets deeper. The June inflation report will be a scorcher and help cement market expectations that the Fed will deliver another massive rate hike at the Fed policy meeting at the end of the month. The bond market is clearly sending a strong message that risk aversion is not leaving anytime soon as the lists of risks to the outlook grows: new Omicron variant in Shanghai, currency headwinds for multinationals, stagflation risks abroad, and rising recession risks. ​

US Data

The NFIB small business optimism index saw expectations for future conditions plunge to a record low. ​ The report shows that companies are tightening up their budgets as capital spending fell 23%. ​ Expectations for better business conditions have steadily declined each month this year. ​ The 7-point drop in the plans to increase employment erased the six-point increase saw in May. Every key component in the NFIB report posted a decline, which suggests small businesses are feeling the pain everywhere. ​

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is once again below the USD 20,000 level, but it could be far worse considering the FX pain seen with the euro. ​ Bitcoin will keep its correlation with stocks and that should mean the next 24 hours will be choppy for it until tomorrow’s CPI report. ​ ​

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Ed Moya

Ed Moya

Contributing Author at OANDA
With more than 20 years’ trading experience, Ed Moya was a Senior Market Analyst with OANDA for the Americas from November 2018 to November 2023.

His particular expertise lies across a wide range of asset classes including FX, commodities, fixed income, stocks and cryptocurrencies.

Over the course of his career, Ed has worked with some of the leading forex brokerages, research teams and news departments on Wall Street including Global Forex Trading, FX Solutions and Trading Advantage. Prior to OANDA he worked with TradeTheNews.com, where he provided market analysis on economic data and corporate news.

Based in New York, Ed is a regular guest on several major financial television networks including CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance Live, Fox Business, cheddar news, and CoinDesk TV. His views are trusted by the world’s most respected global newswires including Reuters, Bloomberg and the Associated Press, and he is regularly quoted in leading publications such as MSN, MarketWatch, Forbes, Seeking Alpha, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Ed holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.