Stepping back momentarily from central banks and macro data, could the best month for US automakers since 2005 mean consumers are finding another gear? ADP slowed to 135K in September (meeting expectations) from a revised 228K partly due to the hurricanes. All currencies are up against USD since the close of Tuesday's NY session, with gold and GBP in the lead, CHF and CAD at the bottom. GBP got a lift from better-than-expected services PMI, keeping alive hopes of a November BoE hike. We turn to the US services ISM at 15:00 and Yellen's speech at 20:15 London time.
US auto sales smashed expectations in September with sales at an 18.57m pace, up from 16.14m in December and beating the 17.4m estimate. Optimists will say consumers are opening their wallets, buoyed by a better jobs market and hopes for a tax cut. Pessimists will sale say that replacements after hurricane Harvey simply took place more-quickly than anticipated.
The Fed's bias is to see good news as real and bad news as temporary so the numbers are more likely to strengthen the case for a December rate hike, especially because the buying wasn't entirely limited to hurricane-hit areas. Odds of a December Fed hike remain little changed at 70%. Yellen's speech today fires up an avalanche of speeches from Fed members this week (Williams, Harker, George, Bostic, Dudley, Kaplan and Bullard).
S&P 500 hit yet-another record high, climbing 5 points to 2534. NASDAQ is now at 4800.