Forex Today: King Dollar keeps leading

FXStreet Team FXStreet

What you need to know on Monday, May 18th:

The dollar closed the week with a strong note, despite reporting on Friday that Retail Sales fell by 6.4% in April, the largest slump on record. The Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index beat expectations, printing 73.7 in May.

The EUR/USD pair closed the week as it started it, a handful of pips above the 1.0800 mark. News over the weekend showed that German EU parliamentarian Weber said that he favours declaring a twelve-month ban on Chinese investors who want to buy European firms.

The pound was the worst performer, undermined by Brexit woes. The UK and the EU, both reported a deadlock in talks, amid disagreement on the EU’s demand for a level playing field. Andrew Haldane, Bank of England's Governor, said that “there are other options beyond that, or alongside that, that we're looking at as well,” when referring to negative interest rates. He also discussed the use of QE, although he later clarified that he was not implied policymakers are poised on any of those options.

Commodity-linked currencies fell on Friday and closed the week with a soft tone against the greenback, despite oil and gold posted substantial weekly gains. WTI settled just below $30.00 a barrel, while spot gold hit a multi-year high of 1,751.75 a troy ounce.

US indexes settled on Friday near its daily highs but remained in the red weekly basis. The market’s sentiment continued to fluctuate between fears of economic downturns and hopes on reopenings. Treasury yields remained depressed throughout the week.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: $10K still in sight amid a descending channel breakout

Author

FXStreet Team

FXStreet

Composed of a group of economic journalists and FX experts, the FXStreet content team produces and oversees all content published on FXStreet. It provides a purely journalistic approach to the Forex market.

GBP/USD advances to three-month peak beyond 1.3600

GBP/USD extends its daily rally and trades at its highest level since mid-May above 1.3600. The US Treasury Department decision to double the sice of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securitiez weighs heavily on the US Dollar and helps the pair push higher. Earlier in the day, the data from the UK showed that annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation picked up to 2.9% in July, meeting estimates, while core CPI rose by 2.6% YoY in July versus 2.5% expected.

EUR/USD surges to 11-week high above 1.1650 after US Treasury announcement

EUR/USD gathers bullish momentum and trades at its highest level since early June above 1.1650 on Wednesday. The US Dollar stays under heavy bearish pressure after the US Treasury announced that it will increase the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities. Later in the day, investors will scrutinize FOMC Minutes for fresh clues on policy outlook.

Gold climbs 2% as US Treasury buyback plan pressures long-term yields

Gold (XAU/USD) enters Wednesday’s American trading hours with decent intraday gains, as a softer US Dollar (USD) and a sharp pullback in long-term US Treasury yields help the metal recover all the previous day’s losses.

Crypto Today: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP defend key support as ETF inflows return

Bitcoin’s upside remains capped on Wednesday while the downside appears strongly supported above $64,000. The Crypto King’s early week rebound lost momentum near $65,000 as investors assessed the impact of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Fed Minutes expected to shed light on the depth of FOMC hawkish split

The United States (US) Federal Reserve (Fed) will release the Minutes of the July Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday. The document should allow investors to assess the extent of the hawkish bias within the central bank after a meeting marked by three dissenting votes in favor of a rate hike.

Why is Crude Oil priced for a reopening the ships haven't made?

Fourteen vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Before the war, the count ran near 120 a day. In the sessions since the waterway was publicly declared open, Brent has drifted back to $87 and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to $81, both a little lower again on Wednesday, with daily momentum on each unwound from the top of its range in late July to the low twenties now.