The next US Federal Reserve meeting will take place today - 4.5.2022

This morning the US dollar index continues to trade in a narrow range of 103-103.7 points. He's been there for 5 days now. Market participants expect today's Fed meeting and rate hike to 1% from 0.5%. In addition, the US regulator may announce plans to reduce its $9 trillion balance sheet. Yesterday Reserve Bank of Australia raised the rate by 0.25% to 0.35%. Today Australia released positive data on retail sales for March. Thanks to this, the Australian dollar is rising for the 2nd day in a row today. Canada's March trade balance is due out today. Against the backdrop of high world oil prices, the maximum foreign trade surplus since 2008 (C$3.9 billion) is expected.

Bitcoin continues to trade in the usual range of $47,000-37,000. On the positive side, new South Korean President Yoon Seok-Yeol announced that he would propose deferring taxation of cryptocurrencies until new laws on digital assets are approved. This can happen only after 2 years. In addition, the crypto exchange Coinbase reported that for the first time one company managed to take a loan secured by cryptocurrency (Bitcoin-backed loan) from the investment bank Goldman Sachs. The name of this company is not disclosed, but the current situation may increase the attractiveness of crypto assets. The main negative factor was the outflow of funds from crypto funds last week in the amount of $133 million, which was the highest since June 2021. This was reported by the company CoinShares.

Yesterday, US stock indices rose for the 2nd day in a row. This was supported by good quarterly reports from Pfizer (+2%) and Advanced Micro Devices (+8%). The sectoral index S&P 500 Information Technology (+1.56%) became the growth leader. The S&P 500 Energy rose 1.37% on the back of good earnings from British oil company BP (+8%). Shares of Exxon Mobil climbed 2%, Devon Energy - 10.2%, Marathon Oil - 5.2%. U.S. banks JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup added about 2% on rising U.S. yields. 10-Treasury up to 3% per annum before the Fed rate hike. This is the highest since December 2018. Today, quarterly reports from CVS Health, Booking, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Moderna, Uber and other large corporations will be released in the US. In addition to the Fed meeting and rate changes, the report on the US labor market from the independent agency ADP for April will also be published today. Official United States Nonfarm Payrolls data will be released on Friday, May 6th.

On Tuesday, oil continued to trade in a narrow neutral trend. It's been a week U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is trading within $100-105 per barrel. On May 5, the next meeting of OPEC + will be held at which the total production of the cartel member countries should increase by 400 thousand barrels per day, as usual. The gradual increase in oil production will last until September. The negative factor for quotes is the continuation of the coronavirus lockdown in China, which caused a decrease in demand for fuel. A positive factor was the message of the American Petroleum Institute on the reduction of oil reserves in the US for the week by 3.5 million barrels. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is going to propose additional anti-Russian sanctions in the form of a ban on oil imports from Russia to the EU until the end of 2022. It is still difficult to say how this may affect the global oil market. After all, global demand is unlikely to decline.

The strengthening of the US dollar, which lasted for several weeks, stabilized the prices of grain and other food products.