Forex news for Americas trading on September 24, 2019:
- House Democrats to start impeachment proceedings against Trump
- Trump: Hopes for allowing China into WTO have failed
- Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index for September -9 vs. 1 estimate
- US September Conference Board consumer confidence 125.1 vs 133.0 expected
- FHFA US July house price index +0.4% m/m vs +0.3% expected
- US Case Shiller July 20-city house price index 2.0% y/y vs +2.1% expected
- Varadkar says he had a 'good' meeting with UK PM Johnson
- ECB's De Guindos: Structural chances imply pass-through of mon pol may be on decline
- Trump: Hopes for allowing China into WTO have failed
- Philly Fed Sept non-manufacturing index 9.5 vs 7.5 prior
- Boris Johnson: We shall respect UK supreme court ruling
Markets:
- Gold up $10 to $1532
- WTI crude down $1.85 to $56.80
- US 10-year yields down 8 bps to 1.65%
- S&P 500 down 25 points to 2966
- NZD leads, USD lags
It was a strange day.
The tone started out positively after China waived some tariffs on orders of soybeans and the mood remained positive until 10 am ET.
That's when consumer confidence and the Richmond Fed both missed. Some risk aversion crept in afterwards and that continued on Trump's unfriendly China comments at the UN. It accelerated on talk of Trump impeachment.
For the most part it was a straight risk trade as bonds and gold rallied while stocks turned a solid early gain into a sizeable loss. In FX, the weakness was more centered on USD.
USD/JPY fell to 107.06 from 107.65 in a steady move down. There was a brief rebound when Trump agreed to release the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian President. Evidently that wasn't enough to stem the impeachment move with lawmakers demanding a whistleblower report.
EUR/USD recouped all the post-PMI losses in a climb to 1.1020 but the economic worries continue for the single currency.
The pound jumped on the UK Supreme Court ruling and stayed bid on USD weakness. Varadkar had some positive comments on Brexit but those are increasingly being brushed aside.
The commodity currencies did well. Especially surprising was the strength in the loonie despite a 3% fall in oil. AUD gained in European trade on upbeat comments from Lowe. I maintain that the New Zealand dollar was the outperformer today because everyone is planning to move there to get away from this mess ;)
