Forex news for US trading on March 7, 2016:

  • Fed's Fischer: We may well be seeing first stirrings of inflation
  • More from the Fed's Fischer: Not that far away from inflation target
  • Fed's Brainard: Must be patient as outlook becomes clearer
  • Fed's Brainard: January inflation was one good data point
  • Fonterra cuts forecast milk price to NZ$3.90 vs $NZ3.95 prior
  • EIA sees 106K bpd less shale oil production in April in latest estimates
  • Talk of tighter US oil supplies in Genscape data boosts crude
  • February 2016 US labour market conditions index -2.4 vs +1.0 exp
  • US January consumer credit $10.538B vs $16.5B exp
  • ECB buys €13.238bn vs €12.149bn prior in weekly QE count
  • Central banks raised gold reserves faster in H2 2015

Markets:

  • Gold up $8 to $1267
  • WTI crude up $1.93 to $37.86
  • S&P 500 up 1.75 points to 2002
  • US 10-year yields up 3 bps to 1.90%
  • AUD leads, NZD lags

The US dollar was the dog of New York trading. There wasn't much data or news to chew on so the market focused on the wild, 19% rip in iron ore prices in Asia. Oil took the baton from there, touching as high as $38.11 and wiping out the YTD losses.

The US dollar loses were significant with a few of the moves exceeding 100 pips in the past 8 hours. Naturally, one of them was in USD/CAD as the pair fell to 1.3275 from 1.3375 in a more-or-less straight line.

The Fed comments weren't much of a driver. If anything, they showed some openness to hiking later in the year.

Cable also continues to the retracement phase as it rallied to 1.4265 from 1.4152. It has been under some pressure in Europe but it reversed to finish up 30 pips on the day in the sixth consecutive day of gains.

EUR/USD was late to the party and had been sagging along at 1.0950 but buying before the London close and afterwards sent it as high as 1.1026 and it's headed towards the US close about 20 pips from the highs.

USD/JPY dipped down to 113.24 from 113.57 as risk aversion crept in but bounced to 113.42 as stocks managed to close out the day with a fifth consecutive gain.

NZD/USD was hit by the Fonterra headlines late in the day. It was a small cut in the forecast but it led to a 25 pip down to 0.6775 from 0.6800.

The winner of the day was the Australian dollar as it continues to push above the 200-dma after the break last week. China, metals and hope for global growth were the drivers.