Forex news for NY trading on June 18, 2018

In other markets today:

  • Spot gold is down -$1.00 or 0.08% at $1278.50. The low reached $1277. The high $1282.50
  • WTI crude oil recovered on chatter that the productions increases would be smaller than expectation. WTI is trading up $0.78 or 1.2% at $65.85 (click here)
  • Bitcoin rallied in afternoon trading after being down for most of the day. It is trading up $222 at $6719.75 and in the process moved above its 100 and 200 hour MAs at $6512 and $6579 respectively. Staying above is more bullish

In the US stock market the results were mixed but well off the lows:

  • S&P fell -5.91 points or -0.21%
  • Nasdaq rose 0.645 points or 0.01%
  • Dow fell -103 points or -0.41%

In the US debt market, yields rose a few basis points from lower earlier levels:

  • 2 year 2.549%, +0.2 basis points
  • 5 year 2.792%, -0.5 basis points
  • 10 year 2.918%, -0.1 basis points
  • 30 year 3.049%, +0.2 basis points

In the Forex market today the Swiss franc was the strongest currency, while the Australian dollar was the weakest currency.

The markets in the US started the day anxious about the stock market. Tariffs and global trading war were in the forefront of most's traders minds. Trump and Merkel also were under pressure for immigration concerns. That had the German Dax down about -1.5%, while the Dow was down about -1% in pre-market trading.

Was gold concerned? Not really. In fact on Friday with trade wars a big news item, gold tumbled. Today it just traded around unchanged on the day.

Was there huge moves into risk off? Well although the CHF and JPY are ending the day higher, and AUD and NZD are weaker, the moves were relatively limited. It was as if the market was concerned but not overly concerned.

That was evident from the ranges at the start of the NY session and at the end of the session.

At the start, the EURUSD range was 59 pips and the pair was up 4 pips. It is ending with same range and up 10 pips

The GBPUSD started the NY session with a 65 pip range and down -31 pips. It is ending with a 65 pip range and down the same -31 pips.

The USDJPY had a 44 pips trading range and was down -21 pips. It is ending with a 44 pip range and -12 pips.

The biggest mover was the USDCAD. It extended its trading range from 48 pips to 77 pips in the NY session, and moved from down -9 pips to up 13 pips, but even so, the rally took the pair up 50 pips at the high. Those gains were eroded into the close.

There was just not a lot of trading going on.

One influence might be the World Cup. I warned of this last week and it sure seemed like the market was distracted. Even in the NY afternoon, when London trader had already gone to the pubs to watch England vs Tunisia (England won on a late goal in stoppage time), forex activity seemed to get even more quiet.

So since the forex, and gold markets did not care, the stock market started to reverse a lot of it's losses. (Nasdaq closed just in the black) and the S&P closed near the highs for the day.

Trade wars? Who cares.

PS speaking of "wars", an interesting story came out of Pres. Trump, when he announced that he instructed the defense department to form a 6th branch of defense? This branch would be called the Space Force (like Air Force by only out of this world cool). Who is going to need a wall when you can have a Space Force instead? I wonder if NATO will pay their fair share.

Have a great day and good fortune with your trading.