Forex news for New York trade on August 24, 2017:
- July US existing home sales 5.44m vs 5.55m expected
- Initial jobless claims 234K vs 238K expected
- Paul Ryan says US will pass legislation to make sure government can pay debts
- Schaeuble wants ECB to tighten
- French July jobseekers 3518K vs 3469K expected
- ECB's Visco: Italy must continue reforms to pursue recovery
- Dallas Fed says inflation is higher than it seems
- Tropical storm Harvey to hit Texas refineries with heavy rain
- Fed's Kaplan: Confident US will grow in excess of 2% this year
- US mortgage foreclosures (2Q) 1.29% vs 1.39% last quarter
- Belgian business confidence -2.1 vs -1.6 expected
- US sells 5-year TIPS at +0.117%
- US Fed's George still sees opportunity for another rate hike this year
Markets:
- Gold down $5 to $1286
- WTI crude down 80-cents to $47.61
- US 10-year yields up 2.6 bps to 2.19%
- S&P 500 down 5 points to 2438
- CAD leads, JPY lags
A day ago, Harvey looked like it would be a minor tropical storm and virtual non-event in the commodity space but it gather steam dramatically and now the NHC is forecasting it will make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane.
Normally, that would send oil higher but this storm managed to avoid virtually all of the offshore production but will make landfall in an area packed with oil refineries. With no refineries to buy the oil, a short term glut has built with the front-month WTI contract falling and gasoline prices jumping.
The Canadian dollar also benefited despite the drop in oil prices. USD/CAD slipped to 1.2524, which was the lowest since Aug 2.
Otherwise , the US dollar put in a solid day. USD/JPY gained a half-cent with most of the climb coming late in the day. The pair is slated to close near the session high at 109.58, up 40 pips since New York rolled in.
Cable finishes nearly flat. It had gained but then sagged on details of the GDP revisions along with more signs of corporate weakness. Last at 1.2799 after hitting as high as 1.2837 on the day.
EUR/USD was understandably locked in a tight range ahead of Jackson Hole on Friday. The pair climbed to 1.1818 and fell as low as 1.1784 -- not much money to be made in that range.
