Forex news for North American trade on December 10, 2018:
- Theresa May says vote would have been rejected by significant margin
- May will look for a legal end-date for the backstop
- May hasn't put a date on how long she needs to renegotiate - report
- US October JOLTS 7079K vs 7100K expected
- Canada October building permits -0.2% vs -0.3% expected
- Canada November housing starts +215.9K vs 198.0K expected
- UK Labour Party said to demand emergency Brexit debate Tuesday
- Macron: Anger in the country is deep and justfied
- EU's Tusk: We will not renegotiation, but will discuss how to facilitate UK ratification
- May spokesman: We are not going to extend Article 50
Markets:
- Gold down $4 to $1244
- WTI crude down $1.75 to $50.86
- US 10-year yields flat at 2.84%
- S&P 500 up 4 points to 2637
- CHF leads, GBP lags
It was another wild one.
The story of the day came in European trading as reports began to circulate that Theresa May would announce a delay to tomorrow's scheduled Brexit vote. That sent GBP lower and then when she confirmed it and everyone piled on, the pound fell even lower. It was down nearly 200 pips at the lows and at the worst since April at 1.2507. It has bounced to 1.2560 but it doesn't look like anything more than a standard bounce on better risk appetite so far.
Speaking of risk appetite, the S&P 500 made major waves once again. It broke below the October low and 2600 shortly after the open and continued to sink to 2583. However it turned around from there as tech turned, in part due to differing views on Apple patents, and the stock market finished 2% up from the lows.
Interestingly, USD/JPY held a bid in both the risk-on and risk-off modes within the day. It added up to a 100 pip gain from the Asian low at 112.25 with the pair finishing at the highs of the day at 113.28.
EUR/USD was sucked lower as GBP fell. It had been holding above 1.14 until cable broke below 1.2600. The breakdown led to a broad USD rally and pulled EUR/USD to 1.1354.
Commodity currencies were also underperformers. USD/CAD has recovered the entire move after Canada's blockbuster jobs report and finished up 75 pips to 1.3397 despite a big narrowing in oil differentials.
