Forex news for North American trading on May 28, 2020:
- Trump says he will host a news conference on China on Friday
- US Q1 GDP (second reading) -5.0% vs -4.8% expected
- US durable goods orders for April (P) -17.2% vs. -19.1% estimate
- US initial jobless claims 2123 K vs. 2100K estimate
- Germany May preliminary CPI +0.6% vs +0.6% y/y expected
- Fed's Kaplan: US economy has bottomed, expects growth in H2
- CDC count puts US coronavirus death toll above 100,000
- Williams: Doesn't see Fed actions overheating the economy
- EIA weekly US oil inventories +7928K vs -1911K expected
- US April pending home sales -21.8% vs -17.0% expected
- Poland cuts benchmark interest rate to +0.10% from +0.50% in surprise move
- Canada Q1 current account balance -$11.1B vs -$10.0B expected
Markets:
- S&P 500 down 6 poitns to 3029
- Gold up $9 to $1718
- WTI crude oil up 67-cents to $33.48
- US 10-year yields up 1 bps to 0.69%
- EUR leads, CAD lags
Who would have thought that the market could so easily brush off another 2.1m jobless claims and some of the worst durable goods orders and GDP reports on record and then crumble on an announcement about an announcement? That's what happened as the positive tone in risk assets evaporated when Trump said he will announce something about China tomorrow, presumably some kind of repercussion for the Hong Kong security law.
Before that AUD/USD made a decent rally to 0.6668 before giving nearly all of it back.
Outside of the general risk trade, the theme on the day was optimism in Europe. Another day of gains in stock markets there helped to finally propel the euro above 1.1020 and there was a non-stop bid in European and North American trade up to 1.1093 before a late 20-pip did.
The pound also brushed off the latest Brexit worries with a solid gain to 1.2325.
