Daily Currency Update
USD - United States DollarThe US dollar index is rising 0.22 percent this morning following the following Tweet by Trump: “Had a very good telephone conversation with President Xi of China. We will be having an extended meeting next week at the G-20 in Japan. Our respective teams will begin talks prior to our meeting.” The Fed officials are meeting today. The question is whether this is the moment to start cutting rates. FX and equity markets have whipped themselves into a frenzy of rate-cut expectations. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the Donald Trump appointee whose boss disagrees with him, will probably try to keep as much flexibility as possible, but market participants expect at least a hint of rate cuts, such as by potentially removing the “patience” language.
Key Movers
Mario Draghi, the head of the ECB suggested more stimulus for the Euro Zone if inflation doesn't pick up at the forum on central banking in Sintra. The EUR/USD pair plunged to a 15-days low breaking temporarily the 1.1200 handle, it is trading at 1.1205 at the time of this writing. On top of this dovish news, the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment for Germany decreased sharply in June 2019, and now stands at -21.1 points. This corresponds to a drop of 19.0 points compared to the previous month. The indicator’s long-term average is +22.0 points. Despite today’s movement in the EUR/USD, with just 11 days left in this quarter to end, this quarter is almost guaranteed to slash the record further of low volatility.China continues trimming its holdings of U.S. Treasuries to the lowest in almost two years as the trade conflict dragged on between China and the U.S.Initially crude oil prices did not help the Loonie in overnight trading, and hedge funds increased their bets that crude oil will fall by 46 percent, the most since August, according to CFTC data for the week ended June 11. However, at the time of this writing crude oil is bouncing around 2.5 percent changing from a pessimistic to optimistic mood towards the Loonie.
Expected Ranges
- USD/CAD: 1.3375 - 1.3410 ▼
- EUR/USD: 1.1182 - 1.1225 ▲
- GBP/USD: 1.2507 - 1.2583 ▲
- AUD/USD: 0.6865 - 0.6892 ▲
- NZD/USD: 0.6520 - 0.6559 ▲