Canada rings in Boxing day as the strongest currency. EUR is the weakest
The Canadian dollar is the strongest currency as Canada takes the day in celebration of Boxing Day. The loonie has been supported by a Libya pipeline blast that pushed up the price of crude oil by 2.39% on the day. The weakest currency today is the EUR. The USD is ending more lower with a gain only against the EUR but modest declines vs the other major currencies.
In reality, the major pairs are all close to each other in quiet holiday trading. The low to high trading ranges are all comfortably below their 22 day averages. In the last week of the trading year, I would expect the pattern to be consistent for the rest of the week.
In other markets today:
- As mentioned there was a pipeline blast in Libya which will restrict supply from that country.The crude oil price reacted bullishly to the report, spiking higher on the news. Looking at the daily chart below, the the price extended to a high of $60.01 after trading as low at $58.32. The contract is currently trading at $59.86
- The price of bitcoin recovered back above its 200 hour MA (green line in the chart below) at $15534.83 currently. The correction lower - after breaking above - found support buyers against the level. We currently trade around the $16000 level. up about $2150 on the day (using Bitstamp as the proxy for bitcoin).
- The price of spot gold is trading up $7.86 or 0.62% at $1283.17
- US stocks are lower as worries about Apple dragged stocks lower. The S&P is trading down about 5 points or -0.18%, the Nasdaq is down -30.50 or -0.44% and the Dow is lower by -30 points or -0.12%.
In economic news today,
- The S&P Case Schiller index rose 6.17% YoY (from 6.05% last month).
- The Richmond Fed Manufacturing index came off a spike high last month at 30. This month (Dec) it came in at 20 (vs 21 estimate).
- The Dallas Fed Manufacturing index went the other way as it spiked to 29.7 from 19.4 last month (and above the estimate at 20.0).
