As always at the end of the month, there is lots of talk in the market of flows at the fixings. The biggest flows at month-end tend to be from index funds. They passively hold a basket of stocks and they typically adjust their FX exposure once a month to match their currency exposure to the index price.
US equity markets have outperformed most overseas markets this month, leaving index funds with an surplus of dollars. Those dollars will be sold at the 15:00 GMT fix.
One caveat: Many a high-priced quant at the custody banks has been working on forecasting these flows for days. Many have already front-run the flows, helping explain the dollar weakness earlier in the session to a certain degree. Once burned, dealers may be twice shy in trying to profit from the flows.
For what it’s worth, there remains talk of major flows into AUD/USD for month-end today…
