Forex news from the European trading session - 1 May 2020
Headlines:
- France's Macron: End of lockdown on 11 May will not signal return to normal life
- Japan PM Abe: Leaning towards extending state of emergency for about one month
- ECB's Lane: We will further adjust our instruments if warranted, that includes size of PEPP
- UK April final manufacturing PMI 32.6 vs 32.8 prelim
- UK PM Johnson: I can confirm that we are past the peak of this disease
- ECB: Euro area GDP could shrink by 5% to 12% this year
- US futures extend losses to over 2% on the day
- Germany sees increase of 1,639 coronavirus cases, another 193 deaths reported
- RBA seen to keep cash rate steady until end of next year - Reuters poll
- Australia PM Morrison says to bring forward consideration of relaxing restrictions to next Friday
Markets:
- JPY leads, AUD lags on the day
- UK FTSE -1.9%; E-minis -2.1%
- US 10-year yields down 3.2 bps to 0.607%
- Gold down 0.3% to $1,682.15
- WTI down 1.0% to $18.66
- Bitcoin up 1.8% to $8,983
It was a quiet session for the most part, with most parts of Europe seeing a long weekend in observance of Labour Day today.
Amid lighter trading conditions, the market adopted a more risk-off tone with the aussie, kiwi and loonie weakening across the board. Meanwhile, the yen recouped losses from wild moves yesterday as a result of month-end fixing flows.
AUD/USD saw earlier losses extend to over 1% from 0.6480 to 0.6438 during the session while USD/JPY eased lower from 107.10 to 106.74 under its 100-hour moving average.
The pound also kept weaker after the surge higher yesterday, with cable keeping at lower levels around 1.2530-50 for the most part.
On the other hand, the euro was firmer though as the single currency worked its way from 1.0960 to 1.0990 against the dollar before settling just under there now.
Elsewhere, US futures are still down by a little over 2% as we look towards North American trading. That owes much to softer news from Apple and Amazon, with Trump adding to US-China tensions over the coronavirus also not helping.
