Well it looks like a pretty wet day as we head into the weekend, the forecast suggests it will not stop raining until around 8pm, just in time for the England-Scotland showdown. England are quite rightly odds on favourites although at 11-1, Scotland don’t look like bad value. They will be well up for this and a shock is always possible.
Goldman Sachs research has changed their predictions once again, now suggesting we’ll see a Belgium Netherlands final (why don’t we call it Holland anymore?). It is one of the problem with research articles. It might make for some entertaining reading but with so many variations and daily changes, there is a decent chance that one of them will be right but its not exactly helpful unless you were lucky enough to back that prediction on that particular day. I’m sure there is a saying about research departments not necessarily having to be good at what they do, but do have to be good at explaining why they were wrong.
USD – The dollar continued to work its way higher after the FOMC meeting earlier in the week. Next week we’ll hear from Fed officials who have been unable to comment so far due to the blackout period. It will certainly be interesting to hear what they say, specifically whether they try to push back on the hawkish tone with something like ‘yes, we may talk about tapering at some point but it is still a long way off from happening’. It is slightly odd that despite the hawkish tone of the FOMC, US 10y yields are back at 1.5%, well below the 2021 highs around 1.77%. Not yet seen a decent explanation for that. No US data out today
EUR – EURUSD slipped below 1.19 this morning although is back above there as I type. There is some thinking that we’ll see further gains in the pair ahead of the weekend on position squaring, I’ve never been one to really follow this line of thinking but I guess there could be some profit taking before we hear from those Fed officials. No major data today.
GBP – GBPUSD traded to 1.3855 this morning, pushed down not only by the stronger dollar but also by a set of retail sales numbers that missed expectations by some margin. Worrying increases in the number of Covid cases also noted, a rise of 11,000 on Thursday was again higher than the previous day. As we open up more it should be less of a surprise that cases increase, the important issue is how many hospitalisations there are. If that number remain manageable then maybe the vaccination program will have had the desired effect. As I type GBPUSD is 1.3890 and EURGBO 0.8580 (GBPEUR 1.1655).
XAU – A quick mention for gold given it has had a pretty wild week, spending most of the time around the $1860-1870 area before falling to around $1770 yesterday. It has recovered a little, back near $1800. The options I had looked at back in April actually expired yesterday, my cheap version had already been knocked out as you know, anyone lucky enough to have purchased the vanilla would see it expire out of the money although I’m presuming there would have been some profit taking long before then.
- 09.00 EU current account
- 09.30 UK consumer inflation expectations
- 20.30 CFTC position data
- Monday
- 02.30 PBoC rate announcement
- 02.30 AUS retail sales
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