– US indices finished the final trading session of February lower. S&P 500 dropped 0.30%, Dow Jones moved 0.71% and Nasdaq moved 0.10% lower. Small-cap Russell 2000 bucked the trend and finished 0.04% higher

– Indices from Asia-Pacific traded mostly higher today. Nikkei added 0.3%, Nifty 50 gained 0.6%, S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.1%

– Indices from China traded higher on the back of strong PMIs with Hang Seng trading 4% higher on the day

– DAX futures point to a higher opening of the European cash session today

– Bloomberg reports that amount of Russian diesel-type fuel stored in floating storage reached 1.9 million barrels and is the highest since October 2022 as the country struggles to find buyers for its oil derivative products after Western sanctions

– Official Chinese manufacturing PMI jumped from 50.1 to 52.6 in February (exp. 50.5) and reached the highest level since April 2012. Services gauge moved from 54.4 to 56.3 (exp. 55.0)

– Australian GDP grew by 0.5% QoQ in Q4 2022 (exp. 0.7% QoQ)

– Australian CPI inflation dropped from 8.4 to 7.4% YoY in January (exp. 8.1% YoY)

– Australian final manufacturing PMI for February came in at 50.5 and was revised higher from 50.1 signaled in flash reading

– Japanese final manufacturing PMI for February came in at 47.7 and was revised slightly higher from 47.4 in flash reading

– API report pointed to a 6.2 million barrel build in US oil inventories (exp. +0.8 mb)

– Cryptocurrencies trade higher amid overall improvement in risk moods. Bitcoin gains 2.5%, Ethereum jumps 2.6% and Dogecoin trades 1.7% higher

– Oil is trading 1% higher while US natural gas prices pull back 1%

– Precious metals trade higher as USD underperforms – gold adds 0.5% while silver and platinum trade 1.3% higher

– AUD and NZD are the best performing major currencies while JPY and USD lag the most