Forex news from the European trading session - 28 April 2020
Headlines:
- The market is essentially skipping a month of oil contracts
- UK April CBI retailing reported sales -55 vs -45 expected
- USD/JPY falls to fresh six-week low in drop under 107.00
- The most popular commodity index moves all WTI exposure away from June
- China says White House trade adviser Navarro 'is a liar'
- France April consumer confidence 95 vs 80 expected
- Austrian health minister says social distancing measures will expire on 30 April
- Germany sees increase of 1,144 coronavirus cases, total confirmed cases at 156,337
- MAS: Singapore economy could contract by more than official forecast
Markets:
- AUD leads, USD lags on the day
- European equities higher; E-minis up 1.4%
- US 10-year yields down 0.3 bps to 0.655%
- Gold down 0.2% to $1,711.01
- WTI down 12.5% to $11.20
- Bitcoin up 0.5% to $7,743
It is all about the dollar in trading today, as the greenback tumbled and broke some key levels on the charts as equities continued to push higher to start the new week.
The session began with more tepid tones but that slowly culminated into bids in the equities space as European indices extended gains to over 1% , similar to US futures.
In turn, the dollar was dragged lower with USD/JPY falling from 107.20 to 107.00 before breaking the figure level in a drop to 106.56.
AUD/USD also turned losses into gains, racing higher from 0.6460 to 0.6514. NZD/USD also posted a solid turnaround, turning losses around 0.6000 to gains near 0.6070.
Cable also jumped higher, moving from 1.2430 to 1.2518 and is settling near 1.2500 now.
Dollar weakness is what is moving the market today, as the retreat in the currency saw gold pare losses from around $1,695 to $1,711 currently. Meanwhile, oil prices were down by 20% to $10.07 initially before climbing back to $12.50 - now around $11.08.
On the latter subject, active trading is slowly moving towards the July futures contract which are trading higher on the day at $18.34 currently.
Looking ahead, it is over to Wall St to see if risk trades can keep up and how to go about the dollar fallout as we continue to navigate through the eye of the coronavirus storm.
