Good morning
FOMC minutes came out yesterday evening , nothing really surprising. There did overall seem to be a reluctance to think of rate cuts later this year but Fed officla were split as to whether future rate rises will be needed. We have seen a difference in views from Fed officials recently to support this, some still wanting higher rates, some happy to pause.
US dollar is higher but I wouldn’t be putting that down to the FOMC minutes, the move higher in UDS had started yesterday morning and continued through much of the day. GBPUSD has traded to a low of 1.2330 this morning, EURUSD to 1.0715 and USDJPY traded up to 139.70 before slipping back a little to 139.45 where it sits now. GBP continues to hold gains on EUR with GBPEUR 1.1525 after the recent disappointingly high UK inflation numbers which has led the market to look for a peak rate of 5% which isn’t exactly great news unless you’re a saver.
It is difficult to know what has driven this latest bout of USD buying. Equities have moved lower aqnd USD has gone higher, I guess that’s not a new thing. Fitch have put the US AAA rating on negative watch. We still have no agreement on the US debt limit, a fact we’d reasonably expect to be dollar negative although who can tell these days. US T-bills mature on 1st June and it is hoped the US will have funds to cover those payments. Perhaps the idea that the Fed may not pause rate rises at their next meeting after some decent incoming data could also be supportive.
Whatever the reason, I’ve seen more upside USD trade ideas being touted around recently, mostly in downside EURUSD and GBPUSD. I still look at downside USDJPY trades and think these seem like such perfect levels to get something on, but as I said recently we’ve had little success in anything Yen in recent weeks. It has rallied ten big figures (129.70-139.70) in the last two months, I don’t mind admitting I really didn’t see that coming. For the record, USDCNY fixed 7.0529, further high fixes look possible. Nov 2022 saw a fix of 7.2555 so we still have some room on the upside.
Running a bit late so I’ll leave it there although as always I feel as though I’m missing something of great importance. Probably not, just ‘crikey my grass is growing quickly’ or ‘Spurs may or may not have a new manager!’. Enjoy the day…….
- 10.00 ECBs de Guindos speaks
- 11.30 ECBs Nagel speaks
- 13.30 US GDP, core PCE, initial jobless claims
- 15.00 US pending home sales
- 15.30 Feds Collins speaks
- 17.30 BoEs Haskell speaks
- 00.30 Japan Tokyo CPI
- 02.30 AUS retail sales
- 07.00 UK retail sales
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