– US indices finished yesterday’s trading mixed – S&P 500 gained  0.14%, Dow Jones moved 0.18% lower, Nasdaq added 0.40% and Russell 2000 finished flat

– Indices from Asia-Pacific traded mixed today – Nikkei gained 0.6%, S&P/ASX 200 traded flat, Kospi dropped 0.5% and Nifty 50 declined 0.4%. Indices from China traded mixed

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

– Budget proposal from US President Joe Biden includes tax hikes. Administration proposes hiking the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28%, imposing a 25% minimum tax on billionaires and hiking capital gains tax rate from 20 to 39.6%. However, chances that Congress will approve such hikes are very slim

– The Dutch government confirmed that it will impose export restrictions on sales of advanced semiconductor printers to China. Deal to restrict supply of such machines to China was reached at the end of January by US, the Netherlands and Japan but it was not until now that Dutch government confirmed that restrictions will be imposed

– Japanese trade minister said that nothing has been decided yet on restricting chip exports to China

– Lower house of the Japanese parliament approved Kazuo Ueda to succeed Haruhiko Kuroda as Bank of Japan chair. Ueda is expected to also be approved by the upper house 

– Chinese CPI inflation decelerated from 2.1 to 1.0% YoY in February (exp. 1.9% YoY) while PPI inflation moved further into negative territory, dropping from -0.8% to -1.4% YoY (exp. -1.2% YoY)

– Japanese Q4 GDP was revised lower from 0.2% QoQ, signaled in preliminary reading, to 0.0% QoQ

– Cryptocurrencies took another hit after Silvergate Capital announced yesterday that it will shut down operations of and liquidate Silvergate Bank

– Energy commodities trade higher – oil gains 0.2% while US natural gas prices advance 0.7%

– Precious metals trade little changed – gold and silver trade flat while platinum adds 0.4%

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