USD losing steam as equities, oil move up in early trading
Daily Currency Update
The USD is giving up some of the gains it saw yesterday against other majors moving into the North American session. The Asian markets closed up, and North American futures are pointing towards a higher open across the board. Oil has returned over the $80 a barrel mark as well as demand for heating oil is beginning to seep into the market. This indicates the return of some of the risk appetite we saw last week ahead of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow looks to be data heavy with announcements normally reserved for Thursday and Friday being added to the mid-week docket. Of note will be minutes from the last FOMC meetings as the market will be looking for indications of future rate hike direction.Key Movers
The GBP is up this morning as speculation continues that the Bank of England may have one more rate hike in its pocket. In a report this morning, the UK public sector once again spent 12.6B GBP more than it made in October driving investors to think that the BoE may raise rates again to stem spending.In the APAC region, New Zealand’s trade deficit for October was better than anticipated today. It came in at NZD -1.615 billion rather than NZD -2.129 billion forecast. The NZD/USD pair has seen modest gains so far today. The RBNZ will be deciding on rates tomorrow.
The Canadian dollar is moving towards a higher open against its US counterpart as WTI Oil moves over $80 a barrel. Adding to this is the general return of risk appetite to global equities markets. On the data front, today sees the release of retail sales report for September which are expected to come in down -.5%. This is joined by the new housing price index for October.
Expected Ranges
- EUR/USD: 1.0226 - 1.0289 ▼
- GBP/USD: 1.1785 - 1.1898 ▲
- AUD/USD: 0.6589 - 0.6648 ▼
- USD/CAD: 1.3389 - 1.3492 ▼