Forex news for North American trade on September 5, 2018:
- Germany and UK said to drop key Brexit demands
- German gov't spokesman says position on Brexit is unchanged
- Bank of Canada holds interest rates unchanged at 1.50%, as expected
- Bank of Canada September rate statement.
- US trade balance for July -$50.1B vs. -$50.2B estimate
- Canada Q2 labour productivity +0.7% q/q vs +0.5% expected
- Canada July merchandise trade balance -$0.11B vs -$1.00B expected
- The models were seriously wrong on Hurricane Florence
- Fed's Kashkari says there may still be labor market slack
- Trump: We may know as soon as today if Canada in trade pact
- FBI investigating Amex foreign-exchange pricing - report
- Magnitude 7 earthquake hits off the coast of Japan, southeast of Sapporo
- Trudeau repeats that Canada won't sign a bad NAFTA deal
- Cryptocurrencies aren't selling off because of Goldman Sachs
- Atlanta Fed GDPNow down to 4.4% from 4.7% on trade and autos
- Brexit: German gov't spokesman says position on Brexit is unchanged
- India finance minister downplays rupee risks
- May says UK has called UN security council meeting on Russia for tomorrow
- Amazon orders 20,000 Mercedes-Benz vans as part of plan to build delivery fleet
- Fed's Bullard says best guess is for yield curve to invert this year or 2019
- ISM New York business conditions 76.5 vs 75.0 prior
- Fed's Bullard: Market signals suggests monetary policy is neutral or somewhat restrictive
Markets:
- Gold up $5 to $1197
- WTI crude down $1.12 to $68.66
- S&P 500 down 8 points to 2888
- US 10-year yields flat at 2.90%
- Bitcoin down 5.5% to $6935
- NZD leads, JPY lags
It was a lively day in just about every market today.
The marquee event was the BOC decision but it didn't add much volatility as Poloz essentially kept a steady hand and kept an October hike on the table, with the usual caveats. USD/CAD chopped in the 1.3160-1.3200 range on the headlines but then went back to watching NAFTA headlines. Late in the day, there has been some optimism.
The big mover was cable on a report that Germany and the UK may just focus on a transition deal and decide to sort out the future arrangement after a Brexit. That sent cable up to 1.2983 from 1.2830 in very quick fashion. However later, a German spokesman said nothing had changed and it fell back to 1.2873 before later climbing back to finish up a half-cent at 1.2905.
The euro was pulled along higher with cable on the initial reports and rose to 1.1630 from 1.1585.
USD/JPY was less-interesting as it chopped in a 30 pip range around 111.40-111.70 on the ebb and flow of the risk trade.
The New Zealand dollar erased yesterday's low with a solid 32 pip climb on a steady bid throughout European trade.
