Forex news for North American trade on May 22, 2020:
- White House's Hassett: Studying very closely economic penalties for China
- Canada March retail sales -10.0% vs -10.5% m/m expected
- US will test vaccines on more than 100,000 people starting in July - report
- Baker Hughes US weekly oil rig count 237 vs 244 prior
- Fed slows pace of bond buying to $5B per day from $6B per day
- UK, Australia and Canada say they are 'deeply concerned' about Hong Kong
- ECB's Lane: Negative shocks on inflation could be more persistent
- CFTC commitments of traders. Net dollar buyers in the net speculative futures positions this week
Markets:
- Gold up $8 to $1735
- WTI crude down 50-cents to $33.43
- US 10-year yields down 1 bps to 0.66 bps
- S&P 500 up 7 points to 2955
- USD leads, EUR lags
There weren't any fireworks to wrap up the week and price action was bland late in the day, likely because of the US long weekend. Trump grabbed some attention by scheduling a press conference but it was a total dud as he spoke for 30 seconds about reopening places of worship.
The main event of the day was Hong Kong and the fallout from the planned security laws. The US and some others rattled a few sabres but the response so far has pretty much been 'thoughts and prayers'.
For now, the market (at least outside of Hong Kong) likes that there won't be any repercussions and early jitters faded for a positive finish for stocks.
In risk-linked FX it wasn't exactly the same story. The commodity currencies stayed lower on the day. CAD did bounce late as oil clawed back a 9% decline to finish just 1.6% lower in an impressive turn.
Cable was stuck to the floor for the most part as the negative rate debate continues.
The euro continued the rejection of 1.1000/20 as it continued down to 1.0885 in Europe and then flatlined.
