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By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Crypto shudders as Silvergate shutters. Initial jobless claims and the Challenger job cuts survey flesh out the picture of the labor market. U.S. President Joe Biden will outline his administration's budget plans, including a raft of measures that would put downward pressure on stock prices. JPMorgan pins the blame on Jes Staley for being tarred by the Jeffrey Epstein affair, and Europe's natural gas prices fall to their lowest in over 18 months as the Freeport LNG plant gets the go-ahead to resume exports. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Thursday, 9th March.
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1. Crypto falls as Silvergate announces liquidation
Cryptocurrencies fell, along with stocks exposed to the asset class, after Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) said it will wind down operations and return cash to depositors.
Silvergate has been a key provider of banking services to crypto exchanges in the U.S. and it is far from clear how they will find anyone else to facilitate the transfer of money between the crypto and fiat currency universes.
Bitcoin fell to its lowest in a month before recovering slightly to trade at $21,632 by 06:30 ET (11:30 GMT), while Ether, Cardano, and Solana all fell too. Other indicators suggested that crypto investors continued to pull their money out of the space, with the value of Binance USD's outstanding circulation falling to barely $8 billion – a drop of 50% in the last month - despite Binance saying that it has no exposure to Silvergate.
2. All not quite quiet on the labor market front
The U.S. labor market remains front and center on Thursday after two reports on Wednesday that showed only patchy evidence of a cooling off.
Initial claims for jobless benefits are expected to bump along below 200,000 again, while the Challenger Job Cuts survey is due an hour before that at 07:30 ET.
On Wednesday, ADP's monthly survey of private hiring had come in well above expectations at 242,000 in February, while its wage tracker continued to show pay growth well above official estimates. The Labor Department, meanwhile, reported that job openings fell in January – but only from an upwardly revised 11.23 million, which was a nine-month high.
3. Stocks drift in post-Powell daze; JPMorgan tries to claw back $80M from Epstein associate Staley
U.S. stock markets are set for a mixed opening, struggling to develop any momentum after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell's warnings of more rate hikes to come in two days of testimony on Capitol Hill.
By 06:30 ET, Dow Jones futures were essentially flat, while S&P 500 futures were down 0.2% and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.5%. That's a mirror image of the big three cash indices' performance on Wednesday when the Nasdaq outperformed.