ForexLive Americas FX news wrap: Equities and bitcoin soar
Forex news for New York trade on January 7, 2020:
- ISM December services index 57.2 vs 54.5 expected
- US weekly initial jobless claims 787K vs 800K expected
- Canada international merchandise trade for November -$3.34B vs. -$3.5B expected
- US November trade balance -$68.1B vs -$67.3B exp
- Fed's Evans: Fed could taper in late-2021 or early 2022 if economy better
- Fed's Bullard: Ingredients for higher inflation are in place
- Bullard: Inflation expectations are moving higher
- UK virus cases 52,618 vs 62,322 yesterday
- Elon Musk is now the world's richest person
- Fed's Barkin: Expects second half of 2021 to be 'robust'
- Sinovac covid vaccine 78% effective in Brazil trial
- Fed's Harker: US GDP could be negative in Q1
- US December Challenger layoffs 77k vs 65k prior
Markets:
- Gold down $4 to $1914
- US 10-year yields up 3.4 bps to 1.85%
- WTI crude up 34-cents to $50.97
- S&P 500 up 62 points to record 3809
- USD leads, JPY lags
The Capitol was cleared out and the market breathed a big sigh of relief and then went back to aggressively buying equities and selling bonds. FX was caught in the crossfire with the US dollar appreciating, likely on bond hedging flows and equity inflows -- though it's far from the only global equity market that's climbing.
USD/JPY held a steady bid in a climb as high as 103.96 with all of the gains coming before Europe went home.
Later in the day as the stock market really took off, the commodity currencies rebounded. The Canadian dollar erased all its losses and the antipodeans took back a big chunk. They all remain just off the best levels in two years.
The euro and sterling never really got going as it steadily slid down to 1.2250. It's trying to make a base there at the moment and it's now short-term support. On the upside, 1.2280 is capping so far.
Sterling briefly breached Wednesday's low in a fall to 1.3522 but bounced 40 pips in some late USD selling.
Bitcoin put on an impressive show as it ripped above $40,000 for the first time then plunged right back to $36,000 on an outage at CoinBase and profit taking. The dip didn't last long as it rebounded to $39,500 last.
