Dollar Mixed and U.S. Stocks Positioned to Trim Friday Losses

October 13, 2025

(170) Today is a holiday in Japan (Health Sports Day) and a federal holiday in the United States (Columbus Day a.k.a. Indigenous People’s Day). While U.S. banks and thus Treasury market trading are closed, the U.S. stock market will observe its normal open hours. In the wake of reassuring comments by President Trump yesterday regarding trade tensions with China (“all will be fine”), U.S. equity futures are poised for a significant rebound from Friday’s sell-off, which had been the worst daily performance in a half year.

Asian stock markets nonetheless took its cue this Monday from U.S. stocks on Friday. Equities closed down 1.5% in Hong Kong, 1.4% in Taiwan, 1.0% in Japan, 0.8% in Singapore, and 0.7% in South Korea. The Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges also absorbed losses of 0.8-0.9% today, but European markets are thus far up 0.3-0.6%.

Overnight dollar movements ranged from gains of 0.6%, 0.5% and 0.3% against the yen, Swiss franc and euro to losses of 0.7% against the Australian dollar and 0.6% versus the Mexican peso. The weighted DXY dollar index is 0.1 % firmer, as is the dollar’s bilateral relationship with sterling. The Canadian dollar is steady.

Ten-year sovereign debt yields have slipped by three basis points in the U.K., two bps in Germany and Italy and a single basis point in France and Spain. Today’s largest market change involves Comex gold, which blasted through the prior record high, posting a 2.5% leap to $4,100.6 per troy ounce. WTI oil also staged a sharp gain of 1.9%, while the price of Bitcoin sagged 0.4%.

The remaining Israeli hostages kidnapped in the October 2023 massacre have been released. President Trump is in the Mideast to provided further impetus to the Gaza ceasefire and will be addressing the Knesset today.

In other geopolitical news, French President Macron has reappointed Sebastien Lecornu, who last week resigned as prime minister, to try yet again to form a government capable of leading a functioning National Assembly. This Hail Mary effort to avert snap elections is fraught with danger.

Released data, which tends to be lighter on Monday than other business days, has been hampered further today by the U.S. and Japanese holidays and ongoing U.S. federal government shutdown.

New Zealand’s service sector purchasing managers index reading rose 0.7 points in September to a 2-month high but remained below the 50 neutral level (48.3) for a nineteenth straight time.

Turkey experienced a record current account surplus in September of $5.46 billion, but its year-to-date deficit of $15.8 billion was almost twice the size of the $8.1 billion deficit accrued during the first nine months of 2024.

China’s trade surplus shrunk to $90.45 billion in September from $102.4 billion August but comfortably exceeded the September 2024 surplus of $81.7 billion. Headwinds caused by U.S. tariffs were mitigated by improved trade positions with other countries. The third-quarter monthly average surplus of $97 billion matched the pace from the first half of this year.

Consumer price inflation slowed to a 99-month low of 1.54% in India last month from 2.1% in August and a peak in April 2022 of 7.8%.

Serbian CPI inflation, a 53-month low of 2.9%, was down from 4.7% in August and 16.2% in March 2023.

Romanian CPI inflation of 9.9% last month matched August’s reading but was lower than consensus forecasts.

Tags: China trade surplus, Indian consumer price inflation

This entry was posted
on Monday, October 13th, 2025 at 6:02 am and is filed under New Overnight Developments Abroad – Daily Update.
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