Beat the street: US markets expected mixed on the last full day’s trade for 2023

(Partial Video Transcript)

Dollar basket closes in on 100 level

Welcome to beat the street as we take you through to the start of today's US trade on this Thursday 28 December 2023. We've got some breaking news headlines coming through in just a moment. Let's take a look at the headlines as we await the start of today's US session in one hour's time.

After record highs yesterday across Wall Street, a little bit of a hesitant start in all three major indices today. But nonetheless, new record highs we've seen recently on the cash session, not quite on the 24-hour markets on the S&P 500.

We'll take a look at what's happening in just a couple of minutes' time. Take a look as well at what's been happening with the weaker US dollar. The dollar basket is closing in on the 100 level and it's passed down beyond the point at which it took profits on a short trade.

Apple resumes sale of smart watches

I'll cover that as well in just a few minutes' time in the context of breaking news headlines.

And as we continue to monitor what's happening with Apple shares up for secondary road, and it certainly seems now that according to the law (the courts that have gone through the documentation relating to the alleged infringement of patents), Apple can for now at least resume sales of its smart watches.

We'll take a look in more detail about what's happening now. I want to show you the minute-by-minute chart, first of all, though, on this dollar basket here, because this is moving in the wake of some economic data.

Trade balance looking healthy

It's not premiership economic data that's bound to move the market tremendously. And indeed, we're just getting some details coming through showing the weekly jobless claims coming in pretty much in line with expectations at 1.875 million. The consensus had been absolutely on this for the money.

We've got the good trade balance coming in with a deficit of $90.3 billion. We've been looking previously at $89.8 billion. So that's not too far away.

Again, ballpark figures around the sort of expectations we're getting in from the numbers so far as the sorry, the weekly jobless claims, the initial jobless claims 218,000. Now, this is more than the previous year, 206.

We had been looking for a consensus of 210,000, not too far away, but it's the continuing jobless claims, which remains pretty much unaltered from the previous month, 1.875. Now, whichever way you cut it, you can see on this chart here that we've got a drop by minute by minute on the US dollar after the gains that we've seen.

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