The Bank of England will announce its monetary policy decision today. BoE is expected to decide the biggest rate hike in 27 years.

- This move would lift borrowing costs by a bigger 50 basis points to 1.75% as the central bank encounters rising inflation and would be the first half-point hike since it was made independent from the British government in 1997.

- Key points to watch out for in Thursday’s report would be whether the BoE continues to use the word “forcefully,” and its forecasts, which plug market expectations into the Bank’s models and expected policy trajectory.

- Most of the investors are currently in uncertainty and on the sidelines over geopolitical tensions over the Taiwan issue between the United States and China.

Equities:

- In Wall Street, U.S. stocks jumped to a sharply higher close as robust economic data, upbeat corporate guidance and easing geopolitical concerns boosted investor risk appetite. All three major U.S. stock indexes advanced and the tech-laden Nasdaq ended the session at a three-month high, with upbeat forecasts from “PayPal” and “CVS Health Corp.” fueling investor sentiment.

- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 344 points, or 1.06%, to 32,805, the S&P 500 gained 63.98 points, or 1.56%, to 4,155.17 and the Nasdaq Composite added 330.4 points, or 2.56%, to 13,228.8.

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Currency Market:

- The U.S. dollar handed back some of its earlier gains, traded 0.1% lower at 106.267, but is still up around 0.5% this week, reversing the trend of the previous two weeks.

- GBP/USD was 0.1% higher at 1.2153 ahead of the latest policy-setting meeting of the Bank of England.

- USD/JPY rose 0.3% to 134.29, EUR/USD gained 0.2% to 1.0184 helped by German factory orders performing better than expected in June.

- AUD/USD rose 0.4% to 0.6967, trying to regain the symbolic 0.70 level after seemingly dovish remarks from the central bank earlier in the week, while USD/CNY dropped 0.1% to 6.7521.

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Commodities: Gold

- Gold prices edged higher on Thursday marking small gains after a rally in the U.S. dollar appeared to have paused, and supported by a pullback in the U.S. Treasury yields, while cautious investors awaited key U.S. non-farm payrolls report tomorrow for more cues on the Federal Reserve’s rate-hike stance.

- Spot gold was up 0.3% to $1,774.66 per ounce. gold futures rose 0.5% to $1,785.60.

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Commodities: Oil

- Oil prices rose on Thursday as supply concerns triggered a rebound from multi-month lows plumbed in the previous session after U.S. data signaled weak fuel demand.

- Brent crude futures rose 10 cents, or 0.1%, at $96.88 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures was last up 21 cents, a 0.2% gain, at $90.87.
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