NVIDIA's earnings beat expectations, as did its revenue and guidance, but investors were spurred by the Blackwell delay and perhaps further expectations, sending the stock lower in after-hours trading (it closed at $125.61 before trading around $117-118 in after-hours trading). This led to Asian stocks dropping, with Japan's Nikkei down -0.39%, China's Shanghai Composite down -0.60%, Hang Seng down -0.76% and the S&P/ASX 200 down -0.39%.
Not helping matters for Australia was the Q2 capital expenditure data, which came in much weaker than expected, at -2.2% versus +1.0%. This is not a good number and the AUD/USD has fallen again after trying to rise above the resistance at 0.6800 again. The price is currently trading at 0.6890.
In contrast, New Zealand's ANZ Business Outlook Index surprised traders in August by rising to 50.6 from 27.1 last month, good enough for the highest level in a decade. Moreover, the Employee Activity Index was equally impressive, rising to 37.1 from 16.3 last month, the highest in seven years.
The data saw the NZD surge against all major currency pairs, up 0.44% (against CHF) and 0.59% (against USD).
At the start of the trading day, the NZD is by far the strongest relative to other currencies, with the USD and JPY tied for the weakest among the major currencies (although the USD has seen a relatively modest decline against the major currencies other than the NZD, i.e. -0.1% to -0.11% in the snapshot view).
Atlanta Fed President Bostic spoke today (last spoke on Friday). He commented on the current state of the economy and said there is still a considerable way to go to combat inflation. He noted that the labor market remains historically strong. Bostic stressed the importance of not waiting until inflation hits 2% before moving away from a tight monetary stance. Although inflation has fallen faster than expected and the unemployment rate has risen more than expected, he proposed bringing forward the rate cut to the third quarter. However, he warned against cutting rates prematurely and then raising them again, emphasizing the need to wait for more data before making any decision to cut rates.
US yields were little changed. Gold tried to sink below the hourly moving average resistance near the $2,507 level but the sellers could not gain any momentum to the downside and the price rose above those moving averages on US Dollar selling.
Bitcoin is up slightly (by about $137) and trading at $59,170.
