Forex news for North American trade on July 10, 2018:
- May US JOLTS job openings 6638K vs 6620K expected
- Discount rate minutes show directors "were positive about the economic outlook"
- UKs PM May on Trump visit: Will talk about trade issues including tariff
- Pompeo: US considering waiver requests for Iran oil from a number of countries
- Irish PM on Brexit: We may be entering into space where the EU can be more flexible
- UK NIESR Q2 GDP estimate +0.4%
- Canada May building permits +4.7% vs 0.0% expected
- Canada June housing starts 248.1K vs 210.0K expected
Markets:
- S&P 500 up 9 points to 2792 (highest close since Feb 1)
- Gold down $2 to $1256
- US 10-year yields up 1 bps to 2.87%
- WTI crude oil up 22-cents to $74.06
- GBP leads, JPY lags
The trade and Brexit fireworks took a break on Tuesday, leaving the market without any directional headlines.
The theme in Asia and Europe had been US dollar strength but it reversed to some extent during North American trade. EUR/USD was at 1.1690 but climbed back to 1.1746 late, finishing virtually flat despite some poor data out of France earlier (but some fine work from France in the World Cup).
The commodity currencies also staged a turnaround to finish flat. USD/CAD rose as high as 1.3146 but buoyant oil prices and perhaps some short covering ahead of the BOC led to a slide back down to 1.3114.
AUD/USD followed the same script with a bounce back to 0.7486 from a low of 0.7430.
Cable finished a tad higher but was much quieter than on Monday as it bounced around in an 1.3240-1.3290 range, finishing at 1.3273. Note the series of higher lows in the very short term.
USD/JPY rose to the highest since May 20 as it hit 11.36 but the May high of 11.40 has held so far and will be a resistance level to watch in the day ahead.
