What’s moving the markets? What is moving and where on Boxing Day 2024?

Boxing Day in Europe and Canada, and the hangover day after the Christmas Day holiday in the US. Nevertheless, the US stock market and bond markets will be open all day.

The USD is higher vs the major currencies:

• EUR +0.05%
• JPY +0.15%
• GBP +0.27%
• CHF +0.13%
• CAD +0.22%
• AUD +0.21%
• NZD +0.21%

US stocks are lower after closing the shortened day on Christmas Eve higher. On Tuesday:

• Dow rose 390.88 points or 0.91%
• S&P rose 65.97 points or 1.109%
• Nasdaq rose 266.34 points or 1.35%

In premarket trading today, the futures are implying a lower open:

• Dow -209 points
• S&P -26 points
• Nasdaq -110 points

In the US debt market, the yields are resuming it’s move higher

• 2-year 4.353%, up 2.9 bps
• 5-year 4.462%, up 4.1 bps
• 10-year 4.633% up 4.6 bps
• 30-year 4.813%, up 5.4 bps

Mastercard is reporting that retail sales for Christmas rose 3.8% surpassing estimates of 3.2%:

• Overall Growth: Retail sales rose 3.8% between November 1 and December 24, surpassing Mastercard’s forecast of 3.2%.
• Comparison to Last Year: The growth exceeded the 3.1% increase recorded during the same period last year.
• Final Surge: The last five days of the holiday season accounted for 10% of total holiday spending.
• Major Retailers: Companies like Walmart, Target, and Amazon ramped up promotions to attract shoppers in a highly competitive season.
• Online Sales: Online retail sales grew by 6.7%, outpacing overall retail sales growth, driven by strong demand and promotions from platforms like Shein, Temu, and PDD Holdings.
• Consumer Trends: Shoppers focused on value and concentrated e-commerce spending during major promotional events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• Exclusions: Mastercard SpendingPulse data excludes automotive sales but includes both in-store and online transactions.

The US will release the weekly jobless claims data at 8:30 AM ET with the expectations of 224K vs 220K last week. The claims data has been up and down volatile with the prior week coming in much higher at 242K. Continuing claims are expected at 1.880M vs 1.874M last week.

The US treasury will auction 7 year notes at 1 PM ET. On Tuesday the Treasury auctioned 5 year notes:

• High yield 4.478%,
• Tail -0.2 bps vs 6-month average of 0.4 bps
• Bid to cover 2.40X vs 6-month average of 2.39X
• Directs (domestic) took 20.3% vs 17.5% average
• Indirects (international) took 67.3% vs 69.6% average

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.