Forex news from the European trading session - 4 January 2018
Economic data:
- UK November M4 money supply m/m +0.1% vs +0.6% prior
- UK November mortgage approvals +65.1k vs +64.0k expected
- UK December services PMI 54.2 vs 54.0 expected
- Eurozone December final services PMI 56.6 vs 56.5 prelim
- Germany December final services PMI 55.8 vs 55.8 prelim
- France December final services PMI 59.1 vs 59.4 prelim
- Italy December services PMI 55.4 vs 54.7 expected
- Spain December services PMI 54.6 vs 54.8 expected
- UK Dec Nationwide house price index m/m +0.6% vs +0.1% expected
Central banks/Government:
- Germany's CSU head Seehofer says he is optimistic that SPD coalition is possible
- Trump says talks between North Korea and South Korea wouldn't happen but for his doing
- China said to target 6.5% economic growth in 2018
- More from ECB's Smets: Bitcoin has no major risk for financial stability
- Sometimes talks on central bank intervention don't always go as planned
- More from Abe: Absolutely unacceptable for NK to continue with provocative behaviours
- Japan PM Abe: Japan in most serious security situation since war
Others:
- Nikkei 225 closes up by 3.26% at 23,506.33
- FX option expiries for the 10am NY cut - 4 Jan 2018
- Cryptocurrency fund BlockTower raises $140 million in capital
Markets:
- NZD leads on the day, JPY lags behind
- European equities are all surging higher on the day
- Gold is down by 0.11% to $1,311.81
- WTI crude is up by 0.28% to $61.80
- US 10-year yields are up by 2 bps to 2.47%
- Bitcoin is down by 2.7% to $14,645, Ripple is up by 39% to $3.80
There were plenty of data points on the day, but nothing really too major. The main theme on the day remains the same as it has been for the last week: US dollar weakness.
The dollar started off decently after the Asian session but failed to follow through as slight dollar weakness came in right before the start of European trading. From there, it was just further weakening in the dollar - no two ways about that.
EUR/USD started off slowly, recovering losses from post-FOMC meeting minutes release - but it found a surge as we hit European trading mid-day up to highs of 1.2074. And it's looking likely to try a retest of the 2017 high at 1.2092.
GBP/USD got a pop right before the UK services PMI were released - and subsequently a small jump after but so far remains attracted near the 1.3550 level.
Meanwhile, commodity currencies advanced against the dollar mostly paring overnight losses - but the leader has been the NZD after it broke free of key resistance levels here. AUD/NZD selling also weighed in, which is keeping the AUD a little lower than the NZD on the day.
The Japanese yen is the laggard so far, as a combination of the Nikkei closing above 23,000 for the first time since 1992 and higher US 10-year yields is helping to keep USD/JPY underpinned for now. The Nikkei surged a whopping 3.26% on the day, closing at session highs.
Onto the equities front, we have Asian and European equities soaring high following Wall Street's record close yesterday. You can see here are how some of the European major indices are faring. It's just boom, boom, boom in the equities market.
Apart from that, we have Ripple soaring again - closing in on the $150 billion market cap mark, which would mean its market cap has almost tripled in just over a week.
