Forex news for US trading on February 6, 2017:
- US December trade balance USD -53.1bln vs -52.1bln exp
- JOLTS job openings 5811K vs 5961K expected
- South Africa - President to resign 'as soon as list of pre-conditions finalised'
- Canada December trade balance -$3.19B vs -$2.32B expected
- UK could be asked to for bigger post-Brexit bill for defense
- A 6.4 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Taiwan
- US sells $26B of 3 year notes at a high yield of 2.28%
- Canada FM Morneau: People should distinguish stock market, economy
- Treasury Secretary Mnuchin: People doing business in crypto must be monitored
- Fed's Bullard: The link between jobs market and inflation has broken down
- Bullard: Does not see policy changing under Powell
- Pres. Trump will unveil details of infrastruture plan on Monday
- Atlanta Fed GDPNow comes back down toward reality
- Detached Toronto house prices fall 9.1% y/y
- Canada January Ivey PMI 55.2 vs 60.4 prior
- Fonterra GDT auction price rises 5.9% vs 4.9% prev
Markets:
- S&P 500 gains 46 points to 2685 (+1.7%)
- DJIA up 567 points (+2.3%)
- US 10-year yields up 9.4 bps to 2.80%
- Gold down $16 to $1323
- Bitcoin up 7.7% to $7655
- WTI crude down 74-cents to $66.68
- NZD leads, CHF lags
The market was walking on eggshells all day and they cracked a few times but didn't break. Then, somehow at the end of the day, the market put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
For all the insanity in stocks over the past few days, the FX market has remained well-behaved. USD/JPY caught a bid into the US stock market open as stocks bottomed in the opening minutes then started a choppy recovery. The high was 109.65 before worries sent it back to 109.00 but the late excitement (all the stock market rally was in the last hour) pushed it back to 109.60.
EUR/USD bottomed at 1.2313 into the London fix after jumping to 1.2430 at the start of European trade. A recovery kicked off from the fix in a rally to 1.2400 were some offers just above have held.
Cable did a nice job capturing the broad sentiment. It was beaten up in a fall to 1.3838 from 1.4000 but slowly climbed back to 1.3983 in a sign of the recovery in sentiment. Last at 1.3944 as the bounce consolidates.
Commodity currencies held up well throughout the day despite the drops in oil and other commodities. Both AUD and CAD are just a few pips from the best levels of the day. Watch for a break.
Here's a look at Elon Musk's space launch today. Perhaps a metaphor?
