Forex news from US trading on November 27, 2014:
- OPEC leaves production quotas unchanged
- OPEC statement
- OPEC doesn’t even pledge to tighter compliance
- Russia warns of long-term weakness in oil prices
- Canada Q3 current account deficit $8.4B vs $11.2B expected
- November 2014 German HICP flash 0.5% vs 0.6% exp y/y
- October 2014 French jobseekers 28.4k vs 15.0k exp
- Countries with fiscal space should use it says Draghi
- ECB’s Weidmann says solid public finances let monetary policy work
- German GFK consumer sentiment Dec 8.7 vs 8.6 exp
- Gold down $7 to $1191
- WTI crude down $4.64 to $69.05
- Brent down $5.17 to $72.58
- German, French and UK 10-year yields fall to record lows
- AUD & USD lead, CAD lags
A thin holiday market was taken by surprise when OPEC announced it wouldn’t lower quotas. Many sources had hinted there would be no change but the market was offside and squeezed hard as crude prices fell to long-term lows.
The initial drop stalled at $70 in WTI and bounced for 30 minutes but a fresh wave of selling accelerated and crude rushed through $68 to as low as $67.75 in WTI and $71.25 in Brent. Small bounce late in the day but hardly inspirational.
No surprise that the loonie and Norwegian Krone felt the weight of the fall. USD/CAD was flirting with a two-day high near 1.1225 after the strong current account numbers but those were from Q3 and cratering oil is affect the deficit in real time. USD/CAD jumped more than a cent from the lows to as high as 1.1355 and finishes near 1.1340.
The US dollar was generally perky, even though the shale boom suddenly finds itself on shaky legs. USD/JPY marched up to 117.80 after hitting 117.24 in Asia.
EUR/USD and GBP/USD both are trading near the lows of the day at 1.2467 and 1.5736, respectively.
