Forex news for NA trading on November 8, 2019.
- Triple record close for US stock indices to end the week
- CFTC Commitments of Traders: EUR is the largest short position. CAD is the largest long.
- WTI crude oil futures settle at $57.24
- What's on the schedule for next week?
- Baker Hughes oil rigs 684 versus 688 estimate
- The Atlanta Fed and NY Fed see 4Q GDP at 1% or below
- Feds Brainard tries to square Fed policy with climate change
- UK election: Panelbase Poll has conservatives at 40%. Labour 30%
- European major indices give back a little to end the week
- Wholesale inventories for September (F) -0.4% versus -0.3% estimate
- University of Michigan consumer sentiment for November (P) 95.7 versus 95.5 estimate
- Pres. Trump has not yet decided to rollback tariffs with China
- More from Fed's Bostic coming from FoxBusiness. Fed should wait-and-see
- Canada building permits fell -6.5% in September versus -2.0% estimate
- Atlanta Fed Pres. Bostic: I think we are slightly accommodative
- Canada net change in employment -1.8K versus 15K estimate
- White House optimistic about some kind of US China trade deal
- Canada housing starts for October 202.0K vs 221.2K estimate
- The USD is the strongest, while the NZD is the weakest as NA traders enter for the day
- Forexlive European FX News 8 Nov: Risk sentiment sours as trade optimism is questioned
For the week, the dollar moved higher, yields moved higher, gold moved lower.
The dollar was the strongest of major currencies with solid gains vs all the major currencies. The biggest gain for the dollar was vs the NZD. The NZD was the weakest of the majors.
The market is pricing in at 64% chance that the RBNZ will cut rates by 25 basis points when they announce their latest decision on November 13. The NZDUSD fell to the lowest level since October 17th and closed near the week's lows.
Menwhile, the US Federal Reserve members this week, repeated that the US economy is in a good place and so are rates after 3 cuts in 2019. In the new week, the Chair of the Federal Reserve Jay Powell will testify on Capitol Hill starting on Wednesday (and will be grilled more on Thursday).
Also, helping the greenback this week was the hope that Phase I of the US/China deal would be signed soon. Having said that, the Pres. said today that he has not yet decided to rollback tariffs with China. It is an evergreen story that seems to go around and around and around, but it does help the stock market.
Today the major indices all closed at record high levels:
- The S&P rose 7.9 points or 0.26% to 3093.08
- The NASDAQ index rose 40.797 points or 0.48% to 8475.31
- The Dow rose 6.44 points or 0.02% to 27681.24.
For the week the Dow outperformed the other major indices with a gain of 1.22%. The NASDAQ at of 1.06% and the S&P advanced by 0.85%.
Although the US stocks were mostly higehr, the European indices closed mostly lower with Italy and Portugal bucking that trend.
Despite the declines in the European stocks today, the broad Euro Stoxx index did trade to the highest level since the 2015 in trading this week. Looking at the percentage change leaders for the major global stock indices for the week, Portugal Italy France and Germany all showed gains of over 2% and led the way for the European markets.
Below is a look at the changes of the major stock indices today.
Another major theme for the markets this week was the move higher in yields. The benchmark 10 year yields saw strong advances in the US and Europe from last Friday's close.
- US yields moved from 1.71% to 1.94%
- German yields moved from -0.382% to -0.26%
- France yields moved from -0.108% to +0.023%
- Italy yields went from 0.993% to 1.193%
Those are pretty good moves to the upside for the benchmark yields.
Finally, gold fell sharply on hopes for a deal, the higher dollar and higher rates. The price of the precious metal fell from $1514 last Friday to $1459 near the close of trading today.
On the economic front today, the Canadian employment statistics were touch weaker than expectations but given the sharp rise in that job gains of the last 2 months, we can expect. Nevertheless, the Canadian dollar fell versus all the major currencies with the exception of the New Zealand and Australian dollar. Below is a snapshot of the strongest and weakest currencies today. The JPY and USD were the strongest while the CAD, AUD and NZD were the weakest.
