Forex news for North American trade on January 10, 2019:
- Fed's Powell: Fed waiting, watching and can be patient, flexible
- Fed's Bullard: FOMC already sufficiently preemptive on inflation
- Bullard: December rate hike was 'an overreach' argued against it
- Bullard: Trade war is very real, very tangible
- ECB Villeroy: Price stability preserves consumer spending power
- Canada November new housing price index 0.0% m/m vs 0.0% expected
- US initial jobless claims 216K versus 226K estimate
- Fed's Barkin sees somewhat slower growth in 2019 vs last year
- Barkin: I do not believe we are at neutral yet, but we are near.
- Barkin Q&A: Sees economic consequences of shutdown as 'pretty small'
Markets:
- S&P 500 up 11 points to 2595
- Gold down $7 to $1286
- WTI crude oil up 30-cents to $52.66
- US 10-year yields up 2 bps to 2.73%
- AUD leads, CHF lags
It was turnaround Thursday on a few fronts. The early theme was oil and stock market weakness but both finished in positive territory. That's seven days of gains for WTI crude and a nearly 25% rally from the Dec 24 bottom. It had fallen as low as $51.37 but finished at $52.54.
The turn in sentiment helped USD/JPY. It fell in Asia down to 107.77 and wasn't much higher at the start of New York trade but it held a steady bid in a climb to 108.48 as sentiment improved.
A major story was the drop in the Swiss franc. USD/CHF gained more than a full cent in an outside reversal after touching the lowest since September. There was a lot of talk about the SNB because it revealed a 15-billion franc loss last year.
USD/CAD ended a streak of seven straight declines with a 25-pip gain. That was mostly a story of US dollar strength with the loonie remaining near the top of the FX heap.
But not at the top, because that spot belonged to the Australian dollar. It shook off the US dollar strength to climb to 0.7198 before running into some offers and chopping back to 0.7185.
Cable was lively as it sank down to 1.2730 in Europe before rebounding. Part of the story was demand into the London fix as it made a quick 25 pip move higher. Later it sagged to 1.2746 amidst the broad USD bid. There are non-stop rumors about Brexit.
