Forex news for North American trade on November 30, 2020:
- Bitcoin trades to new record high
- OPEC meeting rescheduled to Dec 3 as more talks needed
- Saudi Arabia mulls quitting role as co-chair of OPEC+ JMMC
- US October pending home sales -1.1% vs +1.0% expected
- Fed's Barkin: Existing QE providing pretty strong stimulus
- Dallas Fed manufacturing index +12.0 vs +15.8 expected
- BOE's Tenreyro: We will assess vaccine news in next forecasts
- Biden's team confirms that Yellen will be nominated Treasury Secretary
- Canada October building permits -14.6% m/m vs -3.9% expected
- Canada Q3 current account balance -$7.5B vs -$9.0B expected
- Germany November preliminary CPI -0.3% vs -0.2% y/y expected
- CFTC Commitments of Traders: Yen longs increased. EUR longs remain the largest
Markets:
- Gold down $11 to $1776
- US 10-year yields up 1 bps to 0.847%
- Bitcoin up $2400 to $19410.
- S&P 500 down 16 points to 3621
- GBP leads, AUD lags
It was end-of-month and that leads to plenty of flow-driven puzzles in financial markets and little place for fundamental analysis.
There were some swings around Brexit and OPEC but nothing definitive on either front and I'm not sure we're any closer to knowing what's going to happen with either. OPEC moved its meeting back a couple days to Dec 3 and the eurozone is now talking about Thurs as a deadline for activating no-deal contingencies, so that sets up an interesting Thursday trade.
The euro took a crack at $1.2000 and nudged to 1.2003 at the high but couldn't challenge the Sept high of 1.2011 and slumped late to 1.1933.
The headline-grabber though was Bitcoin, which hit $19,857 and took out the 2017 high in the process. Congrats to anyone who rode that wild wave.
Old-fashioned gold wasn't so hot as it fell to $1764 before finding bids and a rebound to $1184, which was nearly unchanged on the day. Then it fell back to $1776 late as it dropped another $12.
The Australian dollar is going to be a focus in the hours ahead with the RBA set to decide on rates at 0330 GMT. No change is expected but signals on what's coming next could be a big mover for AUD, which lagged its commodity brothers to start the week.
