Forex news for New York trade on January 15, 2020:
- Details of phase one deal released as Trump and Lui He sign documents
- Beige Book: US activity continued to expand modestly in final 6 weeks of 2019
- US empire manufacturing index for January 4.8 vs 3.6 estimate
- US December PPI +0.1% vs +0.2% expected
- New Zealand December home prices +12.3% y/y
- Trump threatened Europe with auto tariffs if they didn't warn Iran on nuclear deal violations
- House votes to send Trump impeachment articles to Senate for trial
- Liu He reads letter from Xi: I hope the US side will treat Chinese companies fairly
- Trump gives a shout out to Fed chair candidate Kevin Warsh
- Fed's Harker: Sept turmoil showed pool of reserves needed was larger than thought
- Fed's Kaplan: Fed reserve management has some effect on risk assets
- US weekly oil inventories -2549K vs +1100K expected
- White House considering tax cut this year - report
- Canada December existing home sales -0.9% vs +0.6% prior
- Ruble slides after Russian government resigns
Markets:
- S&P 500 up 6 points to 3289
- WTI crude down 21-cents to $58.03
- Gold up $10 to $1556
- US 10-year yields down 3 bps to 1.78%
- CHF leads, NZD lags
The trading day was lively but didn't necessarily correspond to any themes. There was some hand-wringing as North America arrived because Target reported poor same store sales growth in Nov/Dec. That puts a spotlight on tomorrow's retail sales report but the market was able to shrug it off.
Sentiment peaked just ahead of the Trump
signing ceremony. After a long speech the doc was finally signed and
there was a bit of 'selling the fact' but it was contained and the
ranges were modest.
AUD/USD was
particularly choppy as it fell to a session low of 0.6877 early then hit
a high of 0.6917 at midday before settling back in the middle and
unchanged on the day.
The euro showed some life as it ticked up to 1.1160 and held around those levels for most of the day.
Some intrigue is building in the Swiss franc as it continues to strengthen. USD/CHF fell below the 2019 double bottom and continued lower in the third day of substantial selling. The SNB has stepped up its jawboning but the US decision to put it on the FX watchlist is keeping a bid in the currency.
