US equities managed to rebound on Tuesday which discouraged further selling, European markets and US index futures picked up the tone of recovery on Wednesday. As I wrote earlier, EM currencies were remarkably resilient to the mix of strong USD and weak oil prices on Tuesday, some of them even managed to rise against the dollar, which could indicate that risk aversion wasn’t broad-based.

Today, investors apparently discount worrying headlines regarding pandemic and turn their focus on corporate reports. European indices clawed back 1% on average after yesterday's fall, futures for major US indices rose from 0.1% to 1%. Interestingly, the leaders of yesterday's sell-off – cyclical shares and industrial stocks - rebounded stronger than others - the gains of the DOW and Russell 2000 are the highest among the key US stock indices.

Long-term Treasury yields also rebounded after dropping to a five-month low on Monday which provided welcomed respite as the recent relentless drop in yields was one of the main reasons to worry. Demand for long-term bonds rises when inflation expectations subside or the central bank is expected to keep rates low longer. Both reasons are clearly linked to expectations of a slowdown in economic growth.

Major FX pairs sway in narrow trading ranges, greenback index holds near the opening, cementing support at 93 points. The minutes of the BoJ meeting indicated the Central Bank is concerned about the possibility of inflation recovering despite solid PPI growth and ongoing pickup in activity as behavior of companies operating many years in deflationary environment prevents them from freely transferring rising costs to consumers. The market interpreted this as a signal of yet another delay in paring down stimulus, in particular, slowing down the pace of asset purchases and therefore sold the yen today. The Yen was the only major currency that declined against USD, besides, the rebound from 100-day moving average helped yen sellers to increase pressure:

EURUSD holds near 1.18 level ahead of tomorrow's ECB meeting, however selling pressure is apparently subsiding. The meeting promises to be interesting in terms of the impact on the foreign exchange market and the euro, as there is a fairly high level of uncertainty about certain aspects of ECB policy. Christine Lagarde said earlier that the ECB should soon release results of its strategic policy review, it is not known how this will affect the long-term path and the final level of interest rates.

From a technical point of view, the pair is forming an inclined pennant within the downtrend, which indicates that the pair stays in control of sellers which implies higher chances of a downward breakthrough with a short target of 1.17 - the lowest level since April: