USA stocks rose today, helped by gains in financial shares after comments from top Federal Reserve officials on Friday bolstered expectations for an interest rate hike from the U.S. central bank this year, while European shares dipped and the dollar rose.
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Platinum rose 0.2 percent to $1,050.
Expectations for a rate rise sent the dollar soaring in NY, and it extended its gains on Monday against both the yen and the euro. Silver was nearly unchanged at $18.82 an ounce.
An upbeat payrolls report would reinforce the view that a USA interest rate hike is now likely before the end of the year, after Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday the case for higher rates was strengthening.
Yellen, addressing a gathering of global central bankers on Friday, said the central bank was close to meeting its goals of maximum employment and stable prices, while describing consumer spending as “solid”.
The US nonfarm payrolls report later Friday will be important in determining whether the Fed will raise borrowing costs as soon as this month.
“Even if Friday’s U.S.jobs data helps boost the dollar/yen, it faces significant technical hurdles”.
Traders, while raising expectations for rate increases this year, remained cautious.
U.S. Treasury yields rose to their highest since June and rate futures indicated the market priced in more than a 30 percent chance of a hike in September, up from 18 percent before Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her deputy Stanley Fischer spoke on Friday, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
“It is looking more likely that we will see a rate hike this year, and September is a good possibility”, said Richard Sichel, chief investment officer of Philadelphia Trust Co in Philadelphia.
The Australian dollar was trading at US75.60c, down from US76.33c on Friday.
The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 20.80 points, or 0.4 percent, at 5,239.72. It held steady at 95.518 on Monday.
Higher-yielding, or riskier, currencies were also hit, with South Korea’s won losing one percent and the Indonesian rupiah off 0.5 percent, while Malaysia’s ringgit shed 0.7 percent.
However, in the 12 months through July, the core personal consumption expenditure, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, increased 1.6 percent, below its 2 percent target.
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In commodities, the rally in the dollar and concerns about growing output after exports from Iraq in August exceeded July levels drove crude lower. US gold futures slipped by 0.26 percent to $1,3110.11 an ounce, with prices held in a narrow range by uncertainty ahead of the payrolls data at 1230 GMT.
