investingLive European markets wrap: Gold rally continues, yen recovers opening gap down

[Ben Graham]

Headlines:

• Gold powers through $3,600 as the upside breakout continues to run
• Gold remains supported amid dovish Fed bets and weaker US data
• USD/JPY looks to close the opening gap as the session gets underway
• EURUSD is threatening a breakout of the month-long range
• How have interest rates expectations changed after the NFP report?
• Eurozone September Sentix investor confidence -9.2 vs -2.0 expected
• Germany July trade balance €14.7 billion vs €15.3 billion expected
• Germany July industrial production +1.3% vs +1.0% m/m expected
• SNB chairman Schlegel: There is a high bar to negative rates
• Heads up: French prime minister Bayrou set to face confidence vote later
• Japan's ruling LDP party making preparations to hold leadership vote on 4 October - report

Markets:

• AUD leads, JPY lags on the day
• European equities higher; S&P 500 futures up 0.2%
• US 10-year yields down 0.2 bps to 4.083%
• Gold up 0.8% to $3,615.72
• WTI crude oil up 1.8% to $63.05
• Bitcoin up 0.6% 111,799

There weren't too many notable headlines on the session as markets are still digesting the rumblings from the disappointing US jobs report on Friday.

The dollar is mostly softer, only managing to hold higher against the yen among the major currencies. But that itself owes to the yen being weaker after Ishiba announced his resignation as prime minister over the weekend. USD/JPY opened with a gap higher but more or less filled that during the session in a fall from 148.00 to 147.46 before nudging back up to 147.70 levels currently. Another win for the gap traders.

Besides that, the dollar is slightly lower across the board with USD/CHF down 0.3% to 0.7955 while EUR/USD is just marginally up by 0.1% to 1.1730. Large option expiries is helping to limit price action for the latter so far on the day, alongside some nervous anticipation ahead of the political situation in France.

The antipodes are the big gainers, with AUD/USD up 0.6% to 0.6593 and NZD/USD up 0.7% to 0.5935 on the day.

In the equities space, the mood music is holding up better with US futures and European equities posting slight gains. That comes after a setback after the brief cheer following the non-farm payrolls at the end of last week. Can Wall Street hold on to gains? Or will the September seasonal override the momentum? It's going to be tricky especially with the US CPI still to come later this week as well.

But as we saw from last week, the standout mover again to start the new week is of course gold. The precious metal is now breaking new barriers in pushing above $3,600 while silver is up 0.6% to above $41. The hot streak continues as everything is falling into place for the surge to new highs.

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.