The Loonie is losing some ground after crude oil prices and equity markets struggle.

Key Movers

The US dollar index increased around 0.15 percent after the release of the “beige book” report from the Federal Reserve in yesterday’s trading session. The report compiles information from business contacts in each of the central bank’s 12 districts. This release showed waning optimism among U.S. businesses as they face the government shutdown, trade disputes, higher borrowing costs, and a volatile stock market. It is normal to see that the American economy continues to grow, but some firms are pulling back on planned investments for 2019, according to the Fed. On top of that, the Fed linked rising student debt to a drop in homeownership among young Americans. This, along with the flight of college graduates from rural areas were two significant shifts that have helped reshape the U.S. economy.





In contrast, some US dollar pairs were trading at new highs, especially Emerging Market currencies, such as the Thai Baht, South African Rand, Chilean Peso, and Mexican Pesos. Fed policy is the main reason for the pause in policy normalization.


The EUR/USD pair is trading flat at 1.1400 this morning after showing weakness during the week. It’s been a quiet end to the week for the Eurozone with little data to trouble investors’ diaries. The big news from the past 24 hours was that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras survived another vote of confidence in parliament. An argument with its northern neighbor Macedonia, which shares its name with a province in Greece, was at the root of the turmoil; however, Tsipras managed to survive the vote by the tightest of margins (151-149). Returning uncertainty over Greece would have provided another headwind for the Euro, which is being held back by a slowdown in its major economies on the back of the Trump trade offensive.


Prime Minister, Theresa May and other members of the cabinet have been holding a series of meetings with MPs from across the political spectrum to try and break the Brexit deadlock. Senior MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party all met with May in the aftermath of her confidence vote victory on Wednesday evening. All day yesterday further talks were held with members of the Tory European Research Group, Senior members of the 1922 committee as well as several Labour MPs. Noticeably absent from the meetings has been Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who is refusing to meet the PM face to face until he gets a guarantee that a “no-deal” Brexit will be ruled out. The PM naturally cannot openly promote this to Corbyn as it will remove some of her negotiating leverage with the EU. May is set to present an amended proposal to the Commons on Monday with a vote due on January 29th. The GBP/USD pair made a play for the 1.3000 handle yesterday for the first time since early November, however, it has since fallen away towards 1.2926 in the European’s trading session.


The AUD/USD pair is trading flat at 0.7193 this morning. Despite the markets finishing the week risk-on, the Aussie is trading slightly under the 0.7200 handle against the Greenback with no firm positive developments over the US/China trade dispute. Next week’s employment figures from Australia provide the next big domestic event of note.


The Kiwi dollar is trading 0.10 percent higher at 0.6768 after slipping back in the European trading session. There is no top tier data from New Zealand next week so direction for the local buck and much of the rest of the world will be taken from the China Q4 GDP number due late Sunday night.