Forex news from the European trading session - 16 April 2020
Headlines:
- Japan PM Abe: Will expand state of emergency to cover the whole country
- Volkswagen withdraws its full-year 2020 outlook
- Spain sees highest daily coronavirus case count in a week
- ECB's Lagarde: ECB committed to do everything necessary within its mandate
- PBOC vows to further support small companies via targeted RRR cuts
- Dollar gains ease as US futures continue to climb
- ICYMI: Several European countries extended short-selling bans until next month
- Germany sees daily coronavirus case count rise to highest in five days
- Australia PM Morrison: Attention turning to road out of virus lockdown
Markets:
- USD, CAD lead, AUD lags on the day
- European equities higher; E-minis up 0.2%
- US 10-year yields down 2 bps to 0.61%
- Gold up 0.9% to $1,732.30
- WTI up 1.1% to $20.09
- Bitcoin up 4.1% to $7,032
At the end of Asia Pacific trading, the dollar was bid amid the softer risk mood in the market.
But as the European session began, we saw more mixed tones prevail and that stuck all the way through ahead of the US weekly jobless claims release later today.
US futures climbed to post over 1% gains but that is largely fizzling out over the past few hours with E-minis up by around 0.2% only currently.
Treasury yields inched higher initially as well, but fell off later in the session as European periphery bonds rallied - resulting in a more mixed mood now.
In the currencies space, the dollar saw its early advance pare back a little before trading narrowly while maintaining slight gains throughout the European morning.
EUR/USD ranged between 1.0870-00 for the most part while GBP/USD lingered around 1.2470-00 after touching a low of 1.2458 during the session.
AUD/USD also kept lower but is hugging levels around 0.6280-10 as the mixed mood is keeping price action in-check and in between its key hourly moving averages for now.
USD/JPY eased slightly from around 107.85 to 107.65-70 levels currently as the pair flirts with a potential drop below its 100-hour moving average.
Looking ahead, the market seems a bit torn with what to do next as the dollar and bonds are hinting at softness in the risk mood while stocks are holding their ground for now.
One way or another, one side of the market has to be "right" so let's see if the US weekly jobless claims later will give a reason for investors to lean on whichever one direction.
