Forex news for New York trading on June 27, 2017:

  • IMF cuts US growth forecast for 2017 and 2018
  • Senate Republicans delay vote on healthcare
  • June US consumer confidence 118.9 vs 116.0 expected
  • Richmond Fed manufacturing index for June 7 vs. 5 estimate
  • Nicola Sturgeon abandons timeline for independence vote
  • Yellen: The models we use can pickup things very slowly
  • Fed's Fischer: 'Notable uptick in risk appetites' in asset markets
  • Fed's Williams: I will be watching inflation carefully given recent softness
  • Fed's Harker: US inflation weakness is temporary, still wants to hike
  • Trump increasingly frustrated with China over North Korea and trade - report
  • IMF cuts US growth forecast for 2017 and 2018
  • Case-Shiller US 20-city house price index +0.28% vs +0.50% exp

Markets

  • Gold up $5 to $1249
  • WTI crude up 87-cents to $44.24
  • US 10-year yields up 6.5 bps to 2.20%
  • German 10-year yields up 12 bps to 0.37%
  • S&P 500 down 17 points to 2422
  • EUR leads, JPY lags

If you're just waking up you might have thought it was something Yellen said or economic data that hurt the dollar. Not at all. The data was solid and Yellen was a bore.

Instead it was Draghi who earlier said "While there are still factors that are weighing on the path of inflation, at present they are mainly temporary factors that typically the central bank can look through." The market was slow to soak that one up but it's a hawkish line and it was a green light for the euro bulls.

EUR/USD gains were slow after the first 50-pip pop but they continued non-stop and the pair finished up 160 pips on the day.

Technicals were a big story right across the board. EUR/USD broke the US election high, cable busted the June highs in a 60-pip flash as buy stops were blown out. USD/CAD broke the medium-term trendline, NZD busted to the highest since Feb and then reversed to unchanged.

One of the drivers was the IMF downgrade and another was the mess in Washington.

USD/CAD fell in part due to a 2% climb in oil. The oil traders blamed the dollar but the situation in Qatar is a tailwind.

Overall it was a welcome dose of volatility.