Forex news for North American trade on June 1, 2018
- US May non-farm payrolls +223K vs +190K expected
- Fed's Williams tips nod towards change in FOMC statement
- May ISM manufacturing 58.7 vs 58.2 expected
- US April construction spending +1.8% vs +0.8% expected
- US May final Markit manufacturing PMI 56.4 vs 56.6 expected
- Canada May Markit PMI 56.2 vs 55.5 prior
- US auto sales solid so far as Ford and Fiat-Chrysler beat
- CFTC Commitments of Traders: No fear from franc traders
- US total May vehicle sales 16.91m vs 17.17m in April
- Baker Hughes US oil rig count 861 vs 859 prior
- New York Fed GDP Nowcast raised to 3.26% from 3.01%
- Kim Jong-In letter says he wants to meet without making concessions - report
Markets:
- GBP leads, JPY lags
- S&P 500 up 29 points to 2734
- WTI crude oil down $1.48 to $65.56
- US 10-yaer yields up 4 bps to 2.90%
- Gold down $5 to $1294
Non-farm payrolls traders got a dose of something new on Friday as Trump hinted the numbers would be strong in a tweet, leading to an epic front-run in USD/JPY and elsewhere.
The peak for the day of 109.73 came just after the data and it was a slow slide back to 109.51 at the end of the day.
EUR/USD was under pressure, first on the jobs numbers and then as the Italian govt' was sworn in there was run on stops down to 1.1617 that was quickly erased in a bounce back to 1.1675 before a finish at 1.1657.
Cable put in a rare solid day after weeks of selling. It finished on top in a turnaround that started early in Europe and continued through the European close, when it peaked at 1.3362. To me, that looks like a clear-as-day flow-driven trade in massive size. It helped cable to the first weekly gain in seven weeks.
USD/CAD was an interesting case. It took a quick look above 1.30 after the jobs data but was stuck near 1.2960 for the rest of the day. Even a late slump in oil below a key trendline couldn't get it moving. There were no major developments on NAFTA but Trump also took a shot at Canadian trade via twitter.
AUD/USD sank down to 0.7515 on the US jobs data but did a nice job of climbing all the way back to unchanged on the day at 0.7569 to finish.
