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Gold briefly made a new all-time high yesterday before making a fairly deep bearish retracement over the Asian session today.

1. Precious metals rose yesterday, especially Gold which did better than anything else, briefly trading at a new record high price just above $4,381. However, Gold fell after that failed test, and is now trading about a day's average range lower, which is an unexceptional but relatively deep retracement for the Asian session. Traders will be closely watching what Gold does after today's New York open, when it tends to gain, and trend-followers will still be long here. There will also be many traders still long of Platinum, which is behaving similarly to Gold, although it is well off its high - if Platinum closes in New York below $1,600 a lot of funds will exit their long trades.
2. Stock markets continue to look bullish, notably in Asia where major indices such as the Nikkei 225 and the Korean KOSPI Composite again reached record highs. US indices rose strongly yesterday, with the tech-based Nasdaq 100 Index getting very close to its all-time high, and the S&P 500 Index also not far off. There are strong trends at work here, but analysts tend to attribute the latest boost to increasing optimism over American corporate earnings this season, with about 85% of S&P 500 Index members who have already reported earnings coming in above consensus expectations. Another factor helping markets is that President Trump is continuing to talk up the prospect of a deal with China over trade with his latest remarks yesterday, although he also mentioned a worst-case scenario where tariffs of 155% would be paid on Chinese imports into the USA.
3. In the Forex market, the Euro has been the strongest major currency since today's Tokyo open, while the Japanese Yen has been the weakest. The USD/JPY currency pair is in some focus after triggering a long trade entry at most trend-following funds a few days ago.
4. Despite yesterday's moderate recovery in Bitcoin, it has fallen strongly to again trade below $108,000.
5. Natural Gas futures rose very strongly yesterday but are still far off significant highs.
6. There will be one potentially high-impact data release today: Canadian CPI (inflation) which is expected to show a month-on-month decline of 0.1%

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