The North American morning has been a little different than the past couple days in a variety of ways as equity markets are down, but rallying heading in to lunch and the USD is performing admirably after relinquishing more ground in European trade. Helping the US case is the fact that a majority of US data releases were pretty positive as Weekly Initial Jobless Claims and Markit Flash Services & Composite PMIs beat consensus expectations. Federal Reserve member Dennis Lockhart also tried talking some sense in to the market by telling us that it really didn’t matter when his institution raised interest rates in the grand scheme of things, and that he believed that many of the recent US data misses was a transitory situation due to declining oil prices and bad weather. Considering the general belief that Lockhart is resolutely on the “dove” side of the scale, those comments could be viewed as pretty hawkish.
Outside of Lockhart’s stance, since the Fed announced that they likely wouldn’t be raising interest rates at their next meeting, the USD has been taking a beating against all its rivals. The EUR/USD rallied all the way up to 1.10, the GBP/USD jumped up over 500 pips in short order to take out 1.51, the USD/JPY fell back below 120, and the USD/CAD was rejected near the top of a range it has been slogging through since late January. Interestingly though, the USD/CAD is now near the bottom of that same range. If the market views Lockhart’s words as a hint that the Fed is more aggressive than initially surmised, the USD could come back in a big way and bounce off the bottom of this range with lots of room to go to the upside.
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EUR/USD stays near 1.0800 after upbeat US data
EUR/USD stays under modest bearish pressure and trades near 1.0800 in the American session on Thursday. The data from the US showed that the real GDP growth for the fourth quarter got revised higher to 3.4% from 3.2%, supporting the USD and weighing on the pair.
GBP/USD stays in daily range above 1.2600
GBP/USD fluctuates in a narrow channel above 1.2600 on Thursday. The better-than-expected Initial Jobless Claims data from the US and the upward revision to the Q4 GDP growth helps the USD stay resilient against its rivals and limits the pair's upside.
Gold pulls away from daily highs, holds above $2,200
Gold retreats from daily highs but holds comfortably above $2,200 in the American session on Thursday. The benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond yield stays above 4.2% after upbeat US data and makes it difficult for XAU/USD to preserve its bullish momentum.
XRP price falls to $0.60 support as Ripple ruling doesn’t help Coinbase lawsuit against SEC
XRP programmatic sales ruling by Judge Torres was completely rejected by another US Court that ruled in favor of the SEC in a lawsuit against Coinbase.
Portfolio rebalancing and reflation trades emerge into Q2
Yesterday’s price action pointed at a possible end-of-quarter portfolio rebalancing as the session saw the laggards of the quarter like Apple and Tesla gain, and the stars like Microsoft and Nvidia retreat.