Dollar rises on risk-averse buying
|The greenback rose across the board on Thursday on safe-haven usd buying as global stocks fell and continued concern that a coronavirus aid package would be unlikely before the U.S. Presidential election together with rise in global Covid-19 cases. Sterling fell as PM Johnson announced new lockdown measures in London.
Reuters reported U.S. initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 898,000 for the week ended Oct 10, compared to 845,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 825,000 applications in the latest week.
Versus the Japanese yen, dollar found renewed support at 105.09 in Australia and gained to 105.32 at European open, then ratcheted higher to an intra-day high at 105.49 in New York on safe-haven usd buying.
The single currency traded sideways in Asia before edging up to session highs at 1.1758 ahead of European open. However, price erased intra-day gains and tumbled to a 2-week low of 1.1689 in New York morning as a selloff in global equities triggered risk aversion. Later, the pair pared its losses and staged a short-covering rebound to 1.1710 near the close.
The British pound also traded sideways in Asia and met renewed selling at 1.3025 ahead of European open and dropped to 1.2937 in European morning. Cable continued to ratchet lower and fell to an intra-day low at 1.2891 in New York on usd's broad-based strength together with cross-selling of sterling especially vs euro due news that London will go into another lockdown. The pair then recovered to 1.2937 but weakened again to 1.2893 and then moved sideways.
Reuters reported London, Europe's top financial centre with 9 million people, will enter a tighter COVID-19 lockdown from midnight on Friday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson seeks to tackle a swiftly accelerating second coronavirus wave. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said London, as well as the adjacent, heavily populated county of Essex, would be put on "high" alert level, up from "medium", at one minute past midnight (2301 GMT Friday).
In other news, Reuters reported European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to keep on talking to Britain to get a new trade agreement "in the coming weeks" but also decided to step up their contingency preparations should the troubled negotiations fail. National leaders of the 27-member bloc meeting in Brussels to discuss Brexit said in a joint decision they would "continue negotiations in the coming weeks" and called on Britain "to make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible".
Data to be released on Friday:
New Zealand manufacturing PMI, Italy CPI, CPI (EU norm), trade balance, EU trade balance, HICP, core HICP, U.S. retail sales ex-autos, retail sales, industrial production, capacity utilization, manufacturing output, business inventories, University of Michigan sentiment index, and Canada manufacturing sales
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