Wall Street’s three major indexes closed higher, with the Nasdaq leading the way with a gain of 0.92%, as well as a rise in the dollar and US Treasury yields; amid the release of US Retail Sales (Jan.) data that rallied to a 2-year high, implying a resilient economy in terms of consumer spending; indicating the US central bank will keep interest rate high for a while longer. The Retail Sales figure rose to 3%, clearly higher than the previous month’s 1.1% forecast. Similarly, the UK inflation (Jan.) figure has yet to leave the double-digit level, holding at 10.1% YoY, lower than the forecast of 10.3% and the previous month’s 10.5%. The market will pay attention to several important economic data that will still come out today from the US, namely Building Permits (Jan.), Housing Starts (Jan.), Initial Jobless Claims, Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index (Feb.), and not the producer-side inflation rate or PPI (Jan.).
Meanwhile, JCI closed in negative territory, following the sentiments of most Asian markets after responding to the high US Inflation (Jan.) data the day before. JCI closed down by 27 points / – 0.4% to 6914.54 amidst the release of Trade Balance data, which posted a surplus for the 33rd consecutive month, at USD3.87 billion (Jan.); beating market expectation at USD3.35 billion and increasing year-on-year from USD960 million in the same month last year. The market will keep a close eye on Indonesia’s interest rate announcement today, where the market is expecting the rate will remain at 5.75%; or at least a 25 bps hike, bringing BI7dRR to 6%. Technical-wise, NHKSI RESEARCH advises the market to HOLD all positions, as JCI still stays above the first Support (MA10), while monitoring market interest ahead of BI announcement to anticipate any reaction beyond market expectation; while keeping hope that JCI still has the potential to confirm a bullish reversal pattern after breaking the Resistance level of 6955-5965.
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