Following yesterday's surge in stocks following an FT report that Russia has eased on its Ukraine demands and the Russian ceasefire document no longer contains any discussion of three of Russia’s initial core demands - “denazification”, “demilitarisation”, and legal protection for the Russian language in Ukraine - overnight futures have extended their "feel good" rise as peace negotiations which resumed on Tuesday in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine stoked a rally in global equities, and hit session highs after Ukrainian negotiator Podoliak noted that a ceasefire is being discussed with Russia adding a press conference is to be expected later. Ukraine is striving for a cease-fire agreement in talks with Russian negotiators that started Tuesday in Turkey, setting a “minimum” goal of an improvement in the humanitarian situation. Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.6% while S&P 500 futures gained 0.5% and Dow futures 0.4%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index also advanced, with auto and consumer stocks outperforming. Oil fluctuated as investors weighed the impact of China’s mobility curbs against a Covid resurgence on demand; the dollar dropped. Treasuries bear flattened, outperforming bunds and gilts as haven demand continues to be unwound; the 10Y TSY yield rose to 2.50%.

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Apple headed higher in premarket trading and was set for its longest winning streak since 2003, in which the iPhone maker has added about $407 billion in market capitalization. A revival in the so-called meme stock rally also set GameStop on course for its 11th straight day of gains as retail traders bid up OTM calls sparking yet another gamma squeeze and proving that the market remains hopelessly broken. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

• Dave & Buster’s (PLAY) shares drop 7.2% after the dining and entertainment venue operator reported earnings per share for the fourth quarter that missed the average analyst estimate. While analysts pointed to the impact of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus on the company’s fourth-quarter, they saw reassuring signs in the firm’s margins and recent improvements.
• Progenity (PROG) falls 20% in U.S. premarket trading after the firm late on Monday reported a wider annual loss for 2021 than expected.
• Small biotech and pharma companies rally in U.S. premarket trading, rebounding from this year’s declines, as investor appetite for riskier assets and so-called meme stocks grows. Brooklyn Immunotherapeutics (BTX) +8.7%, Alaunos Therapeutics (TCRT) +6.5%.
• CVS Health (CVS) shares drop 1.7% in U.S. premarket trading after Deutsche Bank downgrades the pharmacy health care provider to hold from buy amid rising risks.

U.S. stocks have rebounded in March as the Federal Reserve issued an upbeat outlook on economic growth, with investors also looking past surging inflation and a historic rout in Treasuries. Paradoxically, technology-heavy stocks, which tend to sell off when interest rates are rising, have in fact outperformed the benchmark S&P 500 as traders focused instead on differentiating between profitable and unprofitable firms.  Even more paradoxically as a new cold war rages, the Nasdaq 100 is on track for its biggest monthly gain since October 2021.

"The resilience of global stocks given the cocktail of risks facing the global economy is truly impressive, but this stoicism is likely to face continuing tests as the impact of mounting prices and the actions of central banks continue to feed through, not to mention the ongoing geopolitical concerns,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell Ltd., said in emailed comments.

Meanwhile, government bond yields rose, with bets on aggressive U.S. monetary tightening hurting shorter maturity Treasuries. Inversions along the curve, where some short-term rates exceed longer tenor yields, point to concerns about a looming economic downturn as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates to quell high inflation.

Hopes of a cease-fire in Ukraine-Russia talks also bolstered European equities. The Stoxx 600 jumped 1.3%, with automakers, consumer products and services and technology shares leading gains. Here are some of the biggest European movers today:

• Carlsberg shares advance as much as 4.5% as analysts welcomed the brewer’s decision to exit Russia, with Credit Suisse seeing potential for a re-rating for a stock battered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Adyen shares gain as much as 6% after JPMorgan said the company could boost its outlook for long-term margin to more than 70% from 65%, placing the firm on “positive catalyst watch.”
• Currys Plc shares rise as much as 12% following a so-called uncooked mention in a Betaville blog post regarding potential takeover interest in the electrical goods retailer.
• Euromoney shares climb as much as 4.9% after Investec raises its recommendation to buy from hold, citing a disconnect between the share price and the media firm’s operational performance.
• Schibsted shares rise as much as 6.6%, the most since March 16, after its largest shareholder, Blommenholm Industrier, buys 1 million Class A shares at NOK222.5 each.
• Nordex shares rise as much as 8.3% after the wind-turbine maker’s new FY22 guidance is ahead of expectations, Jefferies says; wind power peers Vestas and Orsted gain, too.
• Barclays falls as much as 5.7% in London following news that an unnamed investor sold about 575m shares at a discount. Stock is also downgraded to neutral from overweight at JPMorgan.
• Maersk, Kuehne + Nagel and Hapag-Lloyd all drop after Deutsche Bank downgrades several logistics and container stocks due to the indirect consequences of the war in Ukraine.
• Sanofi shares fall as much as 2.5% after the firm provided a new sales forecast for its drug Dupixent, with both Morgan Stanley and Citi noting guidance is slightly behind expectations.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks advanced after a three-day loss, as a decline in oil prices eased concerns over corporate earnings and Chinese tech stocks extended gains into a second day. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.7% with Tencent, Toyota Motor, and Alibaba among the biggest contributors to the advance. Apart from Hong Kong, where gains in tech and health names drove gauges higher, equities in Japan and Australia outperformed, with the former benefiting from a weaker yen and the latter rising ahead of a budget release after markets closed. Investors are waiting to see how the cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine proceed, while assessing the repercussions to businesses from the lockdown in Shanghai. The risk of Chinese firms, especially those in the property sector, facing trading halts is weighing on sentiment as a key earnings deadline looms.  Oil Extends Losses on China Demand Concerns Ahead of OPEC+ Meet

“A V-shaped recovery in stock markets looks difficult,” said Kim Kyung Hwan, a strategist at Hana Financial Investment in Seoul.  “The worst is behind in terms of investor sentiment, but issues like Covid lockdowns and the war in Ukraine aren’t resolved, traders are just getting used to them.” Despite Tuesday’s gain, the benchmark Asian measure is poised for a third straight monthly loss. It’s also lagging behind the S&P 500 index in recent performance

Japanese equities rose, powered by exporters after the yen plunged by the most since March 2020 against the U.S. dollar on the Bank of Japan’s easing measures. Electronics and auto makers were the biggest boosts to the Topix, which rose 0.9%. Fast Retailing and SoftBank Group were the largest contributors to a 1.1% gain in the Nikkei 225. The yen was slightly higher after weakening 1.5% against the greenback on Monday. “Makers of export-related products like automobiles should rise with the BOJ’s continuous bond-purchase operations expected to continue weakening the yen,” said Hideyuki Ishiguro, a strategist at Nomura Asset Management. The drop in oil prices is a “relief” for Japan as an importer, and growth stocks should benefit from the slowing rise in long-term U.S. interest rates, he added

Indian stocks rose as a drop in crude prices along with prospects of more cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine supported buying sentiment. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 0.6% to 57,943.65, in Mumbai, a second day of gains, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index also advanced by a similar magnitude. Housing Development Finance Corp. advanced 3.1% and was the biggest boost to the Sensex, which had 20 of the 30 shares trading higher.   Fifteen of 19 sectoral indexes compiled by BSE Ltd. rose, led by a gauge of healthcare stocks. Price of Brent crude, a major import for India, hovered around $113 a barrel, down about 6% this week.  Lower oil is supporting gains across economies as a lockdown in parts of China after a resurgence in Covid cases raised possibilities of lower demand, Mitul Shah, head of research at Reliance Securities, wrote in a note. “The Russia-Ukraine conflict and inflationary pressures continue to keep the market wavered,” he said.   

In rates, Treasuries extended bear-flattening move with yields cheaper by ~5bp across front-end of the curve, following wider losses for bunds and gilts in early European session. U.S. 10-year yields around 2.49%, higher by ~3bp on the day with bunds and gilts trading cheaper by 6bp and 4bp in the sector; Treasury curve-flattening persists with 2s10s spread tighter by 4.5bp as front-end continues to underperform. The week's auction cycle concludes with $47b 7-year note sale at 1pm ET, following Monday double supply of 2- and 5-year notes; WI 7-year around 2.60% is above auction stops since 2019 and ~69.5bp cheaper than February’s stop-out. IG dollar issuance slate includes two 3Y SOFR deals; two deals priced $4b Monday, and early calls for April are for around $100b of issuance.

In Europe, fixed income trades heavy in the risk-on environment. Bund and Treasury curves bear-flatten with U.S. 5s30s remaining inverted and 2s10s flattening a further ~5bps near 7bps. Germany’s 2y yield trades ~3bps shy of a 0% yield. Gilts bear-steepen, cheapening 7-8bps across the back end. Peripheral spreads tighten modestly.

In FX, Bloomberg dollar spot drops 0.3%, CHF is the weakest in G-10 sending EUR/CHF 0.6% higher on to a 1.03-handle.

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index hovered as the greenback traded mixed versus its Group-of-10 peers; Scandinavian currencies were the best performers while the Swiss franc and the pound were the worst.
• The yen inched up after posting is biggest drop in over a year Monday; the currency may be heading for its worst monthly performance versus the dollar since November 2016, yet trading in the options space is much more balanced. Super-long Japanese government bonds dropped while benchmark 10-year notes were supported by the central bank’s purchase operations; The Bank of Japan offered to buy an unlimited amount of 5- to 10-year government notes for a second time on Tuesday
• Cable gave up an early advance to fall to an almost two-week low; gilts fell. London’s Metropolitan Police are set to issue at least 20 fines to government officials close to the prime minister who broke U.K. lockdown rules, although this tranche of fines is unlikely to touch Prime Minister Boris Johnson
• Australia’s three-year bonds dropped after retail sales beat economists’ estimates, with the gap over 10-year notes narrowing to the least since March 2020

In commodities, crude futures hold in the green, recouping Asia’s weakness. WTI regains a $106-handle, Brent trades near $113. Spot gold extends losses, dropping ~$13 before stalling near $1,910/oz. Base metals trade poorly with LME nickel underperforming

Looking at the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include the FHFA house price index for January, the Case-Shiller home price index for January, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence indicator for March, and the JOLTS job openings for February. Over in Europe there’s also French consumer confidence for March, Germany’s GfK consumer confidence reading for April and UK mortgage approvals for February. Lastly, central bank speakers include the Fed’s Harker.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.5% to 4,590.75
• STOXX Europe 600 up 1.1% to 459.14
• MXAP up 0.7% to 179.73
• MXAPJ up 0.6% to 586.67
• Nikkei up 1.1% to 28,252.42
• Topix up 0.9% to 1,991.66
• Hang Seng Index up 1.1% to 21,927.63
• Shanghai Composite down 0.3% to 3,203.94
• Sensex up 0.2% to 57,724.92
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.7% to 7,464.26
• Kospi up 0.4% to 2,741.07
• German 10Y yield little changed at 0.63%
• Euro little changed at $1.0995
• Brent Futures up 1.3% to $113.95/bbl
• Gold spot down 0.4% to $1,916.02
• U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 99.04

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

• Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. and its allies will tighten the sanction screws on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, singling out industries integral to Moscow’s war effort
• As NATO allies discuss the terms of any potential peace deal to be struck between Russia and Ukraine, signs of strategic splits are emerging from within their ranks
• Policymakers in Japan on Tuesday sought to balance a commitment to ultra-loose monetary policy in a world of rising interest rates without letting the yen tumble further toward a 20-year low
• Japan’s Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki highlighted the need to check if a weaker yen is harming the economy, as he indicated heightened government concern over the currency’s recent slide
• The additional increase in energy prices resulting from the war in Ukraine pushed inflation significantly higher in March, European Central Bank Governing Council member Pablo Hernandez De Cos says
• Key OPEC members said oil prices would be even more volatile if not for the group’s strategy and that the U.S. must trust what it’s doing, as calls from major importers for higher production grow
• Russia has made a $102 million interest payment as the world’s biggest energy exporter continues to service its foreign bonds despite financial isolation after the invasion of Ukraine
• North Korea looks set to detonate its first nuclear bomb in more than four years, as the U.S.’s sanctions disputes with Russia and China make further United Nations penalties against the country unlikely

More detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asia Pac stocks traded mostly higher following the gains in the US where growth stocks spearheaded a recovery and with a decline in oil prices conducive for risk. ASX 200 was led by strength in tech and consumer stocks heading into the Budget announcement. Nikkei 225 gained with Japan to compile economic measures by the end of next month. Hang Seng and traded mixed with the mainland index faltering amid the ongoing lockdown inShanghai Comp. Shanghai and despite the announcement of supportive measures by the local government.

Top Asian News

• Australia’s Budget Pitches Cash to Key Voters Ahead of Election
• Samsung to Offer More Credit in India to Boost Smartphone Sales
• Modern Land Joins List of Earnings Delays: Evergrande Update
• Iron Ore Edges Lower in China as Virus Controls Dent Demand

European bourses, Euro Stoxx 50 +2.2%, are firmer across the board in a continuation of the APAC/US handover as Russian-Ukraine talks begin. Upside that has been exacerbated by remarks from both Ukraine and Russian officials. US futures are firmer across the board, ES +0.4%, though magnitudes more contained with Fed speak and supply ahead

Top European News

• U.K. Consumer Credit Surges at Strongest Pace in Five Years
• U.K. Faces Crypto Exodus as Firms Sound Off Before FCA Deadline
• European Banks Could Earn $6.6 Billion a Year Greening Economy
• Inflation Rose Sharply in March on Energy Shock: ECB’s de Cos

Commodities:

• Crude benchmarks have experienced an erosion of earlier upside amid multiple, but generally constructive, updates from Ukraine and Russia.
• Specifically, Ukrainian negotiator Podoliak noted that a ceasefire is being discussed with Russia adding a press conference is to be expected later.
• Albeit, the morning's action has not been sufficient to spark a test of the overnight parameters for WTI and Brent.
• Spot are pressured once more, generally speaking in-fitting with other havens, exacerbated by the gold/silver aforementioned risk-on move.

In FX, Euro elevated as EGB yields ramp up again and hopes rise regarding a Russia-Ukraine peace resolution, EUR /USD above 1.1000 and a series of decent option expiries stretching between 1.0950 and the round number. Buck caught amidst buoyant risk sentiment and hawkish Fed vibe, DXY sub-99.000 after narrowly missing test of 2022 peak on Monday. Yen maintains recovery momentum amidst more MoF verbal intervention and demand for month/fy end, USD /JPY under 124.00 vs 125.00+ peak yesterday. Franc flounders as SNB ponders direct repo indexing to main policy rate, USD/CHF around 0.9360 and EUR /CHF over 1.0300.

US Event Calendar

• 09:00: Jan. S&P/CS 20 City MoM SA, est. 1.50%, prior 1.46%
• 09:00: Jan. FHFA House Price Index MoM, est. 1.2%, prior 1.2%
• 10:00: March Conf. Board Present Situation, prior 145.1
• 10:00: March Conf. Board Expectations, prior 87.5
• 10:00: Feb. JOLTs Job Openings, est. 11m, prior 11.3m
• 10:00: March Conf. Board Consumer Confidenc, est. 107.0, prior 110.5

Central Bank Speakers

• 09:00: Fed’s Williams Makes Opening Remarks at Bank Culture...
• 10:45: Fed’s Harker Discusses Economic Outlook
• 21:30: Fed’s Bostic Discusses Economic Leadership

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

A mixed medical report from the Reid family today. I have a nerve root block injection and a diagnostic test on my back tomorrow to battle my sciatica. I managed to stretch for an hour before attempting to play golf on Saturday thinking there was no hope. Miraculously it must have helped me get round but I then suffered for the rest of the weekend as I seized up as soon as I stopped. I told my wife I should have just carried on playing. She despaired at me. On the more positive side my 6-yr old Maisie had her latest 3-4 month scan yesterday. Regular readers will remember she's been in a wheelchair since November after an operation to help her battle a rare hip disorder called Perthes. There are no guarantees as to the long-term outcome with Perthes but the latest scan was encouraging and suggested that while her hip ball is fragmenting (disintegrating), it's not collapsing and getting out of shape largely due to no weight bearing. That suggests a decent chance that when it regrows (assuming it does) it will regrow relatively normally. The nightmare is if the hip ball gets squashed as it disintegrates. She'll still need to keep the weight off for most of the rest of the year but there's hope that by the end of it she can come out of her wheelchair and start the rehab towards a manageable hip. There are some horror stories with this disease in terms of pain and constant discomfort through the entirety of childhood so fingers crossed it's going in the right direction due to her discipline in spite of missing out on all the running about that she's desperate to do. Also helping is that she continues to swim 3-4 times a week and is remarkably good now. This has been the one blessing that's come out of a year and a half where we tried to get her problem diagnosed and then treated. Fingers crossed that the next scan in July will continue to move her in the right direction.

Bond markets continued to be as volatile as my back yesterday with big swings in yields but with the front end sell-off being durable. This helped push a number of yield curves ever closer to inversion, meaning we have multiple recessionary signals starting or continuing to flash. The one we always look most closely at is the 2s10s curve, which has inverted prior to every one of the last 10 US recessions. Yesterday this flattened by -7.3bps to 12.5bps and this morning it’s currently just above 6bps with more flattening plus a new on the run 2yr note to blame. Could we invert today? Regardless it's likely to happen soon.

A key factor behind this curve flattening has been monetary policy expectations, and over the last 24 hours we’ve seen investors continue to ratchet up their bets on how much tightening we’re likely to see this year. By the close yesterday, Fed Funds futures were pricing in a further 211bps of tightening by the end of 2022, on top of the 25bps a couple of weeks back, which if realised would be the largest move tighter in a calendar year since 1994, back when the Fed raised the target range for the Federal Funds by 250bps. On top of that, it’s clear that investors are also reappraising what the terminal rate is likely to be, and at one point yesterday investors were pricing in a move above 3% by the second half of 2023. We’re not talking much about the terminal rate at the moment, but as we move deeper into the hiking cycle, that’s likely to grab increasing attention, since the destination will have big implications for a wide variety of financial assets.

Whilst the all-important 2s10s curve is still (just about) in positive territory, increasing numbers of curves have been inverting across different maturities, with the 3s30s curve becoming the latest to do so around the time we went to press yesterday, eventually closing down -10.4bps at -2.9bps. Similarly, the 3s10s that had already inverted went even deeper into inversion territory to close at -11.5bps, which is the most inverted it's been since 2006. The 5s30s was another to invert yesterday, falling as low as -7.1bps at one point before it steepened to close at -0.9bps. Clearly they are all a bit flatter this morning.

If you’re interested in reading more on the yield curve, DB’s US economics team put out a piece last Friday (link here) looking at the value of these various measures for predicting recessions. The Fed have played down the usefulness of the 2s10s curve, and have argued that the Fed forward spread (18-month forward, 3-month yield minus the spot 3-month yield) is more valuable when it comes to explaining recessions risks over the next 12 months. But our economists find that traditional curve slope metrics like the 2s10s provide useful information over a longer horizon, like the next 2 years, and they point out that the 2s10s slope is consistent with a probability greater than 60% of a recession at some point over the next 2 years.

Even with the latest round of flattening though, the truth is that the trend has been nearly all one-way for basically a year now. In fact, it was a year ago tomorrow that the slope of the 2s10s curve saw its intraday peak for this cycle, when it hit 162bps.

Yesterday’s flattening also coincided with a healthy dose of Treasury volatility. 2yr yields ultimately wound up +5.8bps higher at 2.33%, after trading as much as +13.8bps higher during London trading. 10yr yields fell -1.5bps to 2.46%, but were as much as +8.0bps higher during London trading, and -6.1bps lower during the New York morning. This pushed the MOVE index of Treasury volatility +4.0pts higher to 129.3, just below levels realised in early March.

In spite of all the volatility, equities were mostly positive yesterday, with the S&P 500 (+0.71%) staging a steady second half rally to start another week off in the green. The decline in longer-dated yields from their early London peak helped spur tech outperformance, with the NASDAQ gaining +1.31%. Europe also started the week on the front foot, with the STOXX 600 (+0.14%) advancing, alongside the DAX (+0.78%) and the CAC 40 (+0.54%). There were pockets of relative weakness however, with the small-cap Russell 2000 in the US closing flat. Energy stocks were left behind in the otherwise broad rally on both sides of the Atlantic given the large decline in oil discussed below, with the S&P 500 energy sector down -2.56% and the STOXX 600 energy sector down -2.10%.

Indeed, Oil prices did fall back yesterday, with Brent crude down -6.77% to $112.48/bbl, but that reflected the lockdown in Shanghai and the prospect of a further release from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve rather than more positive developments out of Ukraine. It's down another -0.8% this morning. On the other hand European natural gas (+1.26%) rose to €102.55/MWh, which occurred as German Economy minister Habeck said that the G7 had rejected the proposal from President Putin that natural gas contracts be paid in Rubles, with Habeck saying it was a “one-sided and clear breach of contracts”.

Back to sovereign bonds, and there were some major moves in European sovereign bonds as well as the US yesterday, with yields on 10yr bunds moving to a fresh high above 0.6% after the open before modestly retreating -0.6bps to 0.58%. That pattern was common across core European sovereigns, with yields on 10yr gilts (-7.9bps) and OATs (-1.2bps) eventually also moving lower following their increases that morning. Similarly to the US, this has come as investor conviction has grown about the chances of tighter ECB policy in the coming months, with 48bps of hikes priced by year-end. Nevertheless, there’s still a wide policy divergence between the Fed’s and the ECB’s trajectory, and we saw this in the widening spread between 2yr US and Germany yields, which closed at 246.1bps yesterday, the most since September 2019.

Asian equity markets are trading higher outside of China this morning with the Nikkei (+0.60%), Hang Seng (+0.40%) and Kospi (+0.31%) up. Stocks in mainland China are wavering with the Shanghai Composite (-0.44%) and CSI (-0.11%) both trading in negative territory as I type. Meanwhile, contracts on the S&P 500 (+0.04%) are fractionally higher while Nasdaq futures are down -0.11%.

Early morning data showed that Japan’s industrial output rebounded +0.5% m/m in February after January’s contraction of -0.8%. Separately, Japan’s jobless rate inched down to 2.7% in February from 2.8% in January while the jobs-to-applicants ratio improved to 1.21 in February from 1.20 in the prior month. Elsewhere, Australia reported retail sales for February, advancing +1.8% m/m and beating market expectations for a +0.9% gain. It followed a downwardly revised +1.6% m/m increase in January.

The Japanese Yen weakened to its lowest level against the US Dollar since 2015, depreciating -1.48% to 123.86 per dollar, and at one point surpassing 125 per dollar. It's moved nearly 8% in four weeks - a substantial move historically. The latest move came as the Bank of Japan announced they would purchase 10yr JGBs in unlimited quantities over three sessions today, tomorrow and the day after, which followed their move above 0.25% at one point, which we haven’t seen since 2016. The Yen is trading at 123.31 as we go to press so a continued reversal from the close and the lows yesterday morning.

Elsewhere today, there’s set to be another round of in-person talks taking place in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine as the war continues into its second month. Investors have grasped at positive headlines in recent weeks and more sensitive assets such as energy prices have reacted accordingly, but the reality has been few signs of concrete progress towards any ceasefire, even if there has been a moderation in some of the demands from either side as to any potential settlement.

Finally on Europe, we’re now just 12 days away from the first round of the French presidential election, and there are signs the race is tightening up slightly as the official campaign period began yesterday. Politico’s polling average puts President Macron in the lead still, but his 1st round polling has dipped to 28%, having been at 30% a couple of weeks earlier following the bounce he saw after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Behind him is Marine Le Pen on 19%, who he also faced in the second round back in 2017, and her average is up from 18% a couple of weeks earlier. The far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon is also gaining, now in 3rd place with 14% (up from 12% a couple of weeks ago), but he’s still 5 points behind Le Pen, and only the top 2 candidates go through to the run-off two weeks later. Behind them are also the far-right Eric Zemmour (11%), as well as the conservative Valérie Pécresse (11%).

To the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include the FHFA house price index for January, the Case-Shiller home price index for January, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence indicator for March, and the JOLTS job openings for February. Over in Europe there’s also French consumer confidence for March, Germany’s GfK consumer confidence reading for April and UK mortgage approvals for February. Lastly, central bank speakers include the Fed’s Harker.