The US-led military strike against Syria’s alleged chemical arms infrastructure was a one-time move according to the UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson even as the US signaled it’s ready to punish the Middle Eastern country again if it keeps using banned weapons. The announcement made seems to be highly pro-market oriented, as western leaders do realise that actions against Syria might seriously shock the markets especially the commodities ones.

For now, traditional risk markets left unmoved but worries persist as US likely to ramp up Russian sanctions. The lack of a flight to safety is most apparent on short-dated US government debt, where sustained selling took the yield on the 2-year Treasury to its highest since September 2008, at 2.3867%.

European bourses are holding their ground after a steady showing in much of Asia and investors are not moving into haven assets, in a measured market response to the weekend’s US-led military strikes against Syria. European equity markets opened flat to +0.25%, traditional safe haven currencies the JPY and CHF were little changed while oil edged lower after last week’s bullish surge. European macro-calendar is empty on Monday shifting focus on sentiment and the US retail sales data due on Monday afternoon.

The conclusion in general: The US-led military intervention in Syria did not yet spur any massive currency market reaction as it is seen as being unilateral and once-off action. Oil prices are coming off last week’s three-year highs as investors hope that the conflict will not escalate.

Russia: Russian assets are looking exposed on expectations of sanctions from Washington on Moscow, where President Vladimir Putin remains an ally of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

The rouble is weaker by a further 1.5% to Rbs 62.9930 per dollar, leaving it around last week’s intraday nadir of Rbs 65 — a level it previously traded at in late 2016.

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/5c993d18-4116-11e8-93cf-67ac3a6482fd

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/european-shares-steady-after-usled-strike-on-syria-wpp-falls-1395715

https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/european-fx-outlook-life-after-striking-syria-sees-us-dollar-little-changed-201804160557

https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/market_alert/2018/04/16/Markets-Brush-Off-Geopolitics-Gold-Nears-Strong-Support.html

Shares of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gained around 2% in pre-market trading on
Thursday, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a conference call with reporters after the prior session’s close. Facebook CEO says he remains right person to lead company despite privacy scandal. “When you’re building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up,”
Zuckerberg said, adding that the important thing was to learn from
mistakes.

Shares in Facebook closed down 0.6% on Wednesday to $155.10. They have tumbled more than 16% since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. Other tech companies have improved their standing for a bit: Facebook (O:FB), Amazon (O:AMZN), Alphabet (O:GOOGL), Netflix (O:NFLX) – collectively known as the “FANG” group – were up between 1% and 3%.

“Knowing what I know today, clearly we should have done more,” said CEO of Facebook.

Facebook was taking steps to restrict which personal data is available to third-party app developers, he said, and it might take two more years to fix Facebook’s problems.

Sources: 

https://www.ft.com/content/eacc29fa-38b6-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544

https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/top-5-things-to-know-in-the-market-on-thursday-1379422

https://www.investing.com/news/technology-news/facebook-to-revise-terms-of-service-to-include-more-privacy-language-1378160

Markets situation:

• Wall Street futures point to losses of over 1% for major indices
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and Seoul’s Kospi stand out with notable falls
• Frankfurt’s export-heavy Xetra Dax hit as trade dispute unnerves investors
• China applies 25% tariff to 106 US products
• Trump’s new tariffs applied to 1,333 Chinese products
• Dollar slips having held its ground before Beijing’s response
• US corn and soyabean futures down almost 3% after inclusion on China’s list

It has been a hard day’s night for Dollar, recalling famous Beatles song. This morning, the US dollar remains weak as the Trump administration revealed trade tariffs that are wider ranging than previously thought. Market reaction has been relatively muted, but the underlying trend remains pressure on the dollar. Basically, China hit back at the Trump administration’s plan to slap tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, retaliating with a list of similar duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.

Tough hit for republican administration which is already under pressure from tech stock market woes. The dollar slumped against the Japanese yen, as safe haven demand was boosted by these escalating trade tensions. USD/JPY was down nearly 0.4% to 106.15, after sliding to an overnight low of 105.69.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, dipped 0.2% to 89.69.

In the bond market, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield inched down to 2.770%.

Looking ahead, the highlight of Wednesday’s economic calendar will be the ADP jobs report at 8:15AM ET (1215GMT). Expectations are 208,000 private jobs were created in March.

Today`s market movers are: UK construction PMI at 09.30, European CPI flash estimates at 10.00, US ADP non-manufacturing PMI is at 15.00, US crude oil inventories are at 15.30, FOMC member Mester speaks at 16.00. All times are London times, of course.

Sources:

https://www.ft.com/content/fa91a692-3796-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544

https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/top-5-things-to-know-in-the-market-on-wednesday-1376930

https://www.fxstreet.com/news?utm_expid=.fMQX43R4Q9Op9hQ4nekQ9w.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fxstreet.com%2Ft%2Fh