World Financial Markets Quieted by Widely Shared Good Friday Holiday Observances

April 18, 2025

Today is a holiday in Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe and the Western Hemisphere, and many places in Europe.

The weighted DXY dollar index fluctuated in a extremely narrow 0.2% high/low range overnight.

Among stock markets that were open for trading part of today, share prices rose 1.7% in Vietnam, 1.1% in Malaysia, 1.0% in Japan, 0.5% in South Korea and 0.9% in Thailand, 0.5% in South Korea but dipped 0.1% in China. Turkey’s stock exchange fell 0.6%.

The price of WTI oil climbed 3.5%. Bitcoin and gold are 0.5% cheaper. Japan’s 10-year JGB yield fell back four basis points.

Market chatter is closing the week more hopeful than earlier that tariffs may end up lower than feared once all the bilateral negotiations are completed. U.S. talks with Japan and Indonesia, to name two, have reportedly made progress. That said, the never-ending fresh demands of the U.S. federal government on major universities in which deal negotiations have proven to be a tool to elicit concessions from school administrators, suggests otherwise.

Friday’s main data report has been Japanese consumer prices for March. The overall CPI there rose 0.3% on month but recorded the lowest year-on-year increase (3.6%) since December before such spiked to 4.0% in January. Consumer price inflation excluding fresh food ticked higher to 3.2%, however, and the index excluding food and energy rose 0.3 percentage points to 2.9%, however. The 12-month increase in the energy component of 6.6% was down from 6.9% in February and 10.8% in January.

February producer price inflation rates of 1.2% in Slovenia and 4.7% in Moldova represented 19- and 17-month highs. It was Slovenia’s first reading above 0% since December 2023, and Moldova had previously experienced negative PPI inflation from December 2023 through December 2024.

Chinese foreign direct investment recorded the smallest year-on-year decline (-10.8% in March) since -8.0% in December 2023.

The Central Bank of Egypt slashed its overnight deposit rate by 225 basis points to 25.0%. A peak of 27.25% had been maintained previously since March 2024. Similarly-sized reductions were made in the overnight lending rate and discount rates to 26.0% and 25.5%, respectively. A released statement proclaims that last quarter “witnessed a significant decline in annual inflation due to a sizable favorable base effect, cumulative monetary tightening, and the fading impact of previous shocks.” Annual food price inflation fell from 45.0 percent in March 2024 to 6.6 percent in March 2025, and year-on-year overall CPI inflation of 13.6% was down from 24.0% in January and 38% in September 2023. Officials “will continue to assess its decisions regarding the magnitude and pace of monetary policy easing on a meeting-by-meeting basis.”

Tags: Central Bank of Egypt, Japanese consumer prices

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on Friday, April 18th, 2025 at 6:09 am and is filed under New Overnight Developments Abroad – Daily Update.
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