Tough day for the equity markets as the NASDAQ stock market was dropped 2.4%

Today's expected range for the Canadian Dollar against the major currencies:

US Dollar        1.3800-1.3900

Euro                1.4525-1.4625

Sterling           1.6650-1.6750

WTI Oil (opening level) $83.35

The US Dollar index is stronger this morning as the Dollar has made gains on the back of the US 10-year interest rates moving higher near the 5% level again. The Dollar has also picked up some steam as the Tech sector has suffered significant stock losses as earning are being reported. Yesterday saw Meta (Facebook) while beating sales expectation drop over 4% on comments they made that the situation in the middle East could lead to future profitability issues, Alphabet (Google) stock dropped over 9% yesterday and the entire NASDAQ was down 2.4% so overall a tough day for the equity markets which should follow on today as the market get set for Amazon to release their results later today.

As I write the European Central Bank has announced that it is keeping its key lending rate at 4.5% which was expected by the market, EUR.USD has gained a little but for the most part the currency market is ignoring the announcement. In other currency news overnight USD.JPY is trading above the 150.00 level so markets are waiting to see if the Bank of Japan intervenes in the currency markets.

USD.CAD opens the day about 100 points higher than yesterdays opening as the market reacted to the Bank of Canada keeping their key lending rate at 5% and after they acknowledged that higher interest rates are slowing the economy, they also indicated that if inflation remains stubborn, they will resume increasing interest rates to try and bring it under control. USD.CAD now trades near the 1.3820 (0.7236) level which is its highest level since March of this year.

Up today we get the US GDP report for the 3rd quarter and it is expected to show that the US economy is steaming ahead at a growth rate of 4.3% which is significantly higher than the 2.1% reported in the 2nd quarter. Clearly the US economy is the only Western economy that is flourishing despite higher interest rates and this gives the Fed room to keep interest higher longer than previously expected.

Stocks are again going to be lower today as the market is now in a bit of a freefall led lower by the tech sector, Canadian Financial stocks are getting hit particularly hard at the moment as well. For today the US Dollar should remain supported and we could see further weakness in the Canadian Dollar.