Forex news for North American trade on Nov 19, 2019:
- BOC's Wilkins: Economy is in 'relatively good place overall' but notes that BOC has room to maneuver
- Trump: We will see what happens on China. If there's no deal, I'll raise tariffs higher
- Near-deal from May now being used as benchmark on how much tariffs to be rolled back - report
- Fed's Williams: Watching more for some of the downsides to outlook
- Another UK election poll shows Conservatives with a commanding lead
- New Zealand GDT price index +1.7%
- Big gaps remain in China-US trade talks - Global Times
- Fed's Williams: The economy's in a very good place
- Canada October Teranet house price index +1.0% vs +0.7% y/y prior
- US building permits for October 1461K vs 1385K estimate
- Canada September manufacturing sales -0.2% vs -0.5% expected
Markets:
- Gold up $1 to $1472
- WTI crude down $1.79 to $55.26
- US 10-year yields down 3 bps to 1.78%
- S&P 500 down 2 points to 1320
- NZD leads, CAD lags
We played the usual hot-and-cold game on the trade deal. Markets were upbeat before US traders arrived but some of that dissipated as US stocks opened. The gains never matched the +10 reading in equity futures, in part due to a couple of earnings misses. Early on, risk trades started to soften and that pulled USD/JPY down to 108.50 from 108.65. The scoop on lowering tariffs sounded risk-positive to me but the market collectively shrugged.
The bigger move came in USD/CAD. The pair hit stops below 1.3200 early in Toronto trading but came back shortly afterwards. From there, the sinking oil price continued to lend a bid. So far we have run into offers at 1.3271, which is the Nov high but we're testing it again as I write. A break would clear the way to 1.3300/40.
Earlier in the day AUD had strengthened on a notorious RBA-watcher but it leveled out around 0.6825. The kiwi followed a similar path and didn't get any help from a bullish dairy auction.
Cable slipped ahead of the election debate on the risk that Corbyn would do something to vault himself back into the contest but the bottom came just as they talking started and the pair made some minor headway during the debate, showing (at least) that Boris did enough to maintain his double-digit polling lead.
The euro did very little in a tight range around 1.1080.
