Forex news for North American trade on April 20, 2020:
- May US oil settles at -$37.63
- US Senators unveil bill to hold China accountable for coronavirus
- Italy new coronavirus cases fall to lowest in nearly six weeks
- New York state coronavirus numbers: Deaths 14,347 versus 13,869
- UK coronavirus cases rises to 124,743 from 120,067 yesterday
- Canada's confirmed coronavirus cases rise to 35,392 from 33,922 on April 19
- Kudlow: Stimulus talks progressing nicely
- Merkel: We shouldn't move too quickly easing the lockdown
- Canada February wholesale trade sales +0.7% vs -0.4% expected
- Teranet March Canada house price index +3.8% vs +2.9% y/y prior
- Chicago Fed national activity index for March -4.19 versus -3 estimate
Markets:
- Gold up $14 to $1696
- US 10-year yields down 2.5 bps to 0.61 bps
- May WTI crude oil down $44.51 to $26.24
- S&P 500 down 51 points to 2823
- NZD leads, CAD lags
What a day in the oil market. This was one for the ages. One where you watch the ticker on a market like you're watching an Academy Award-winning movie. May WTI started the day at $17.85 and absolutely, truly imploded. It held for a time at the big round numbers like $10 and $5 and made a stand at zero then completely crumbled to a low of -$40.32 per barrel.
The May contract expires tomorrow and most of the volume is now in June. It was also down 15% but a much milder $3.88 drop to $21.17/barrel. Ominously though, many physical delivery points are negative now.
The Canadian dollar and oil companies were sanguine relatively. USD/CAD chopped around then rose to 1.4123 in the only real notable move in FX today. That's narrowly above Friday's high but still below Thursday's peak of 1.4182.
In the rest of commodity FX there was also a risk-off mood that hit late in the day. US stocks slid late as sentiment worsened and that knocked 50 pips off of AUD/USD from the highs.
USD/JPY trading in a narrow range around 107.70 with a disappointing lack of volatility that speaks to a market that's frozen and doesn't know what to do.
Cable was a bit more lively as it fell to 1.2418 early in North America, then rose to 1.2485 on fixing demand only to fade back to 1.2435 late.
EUR/USD also tried the upside before fading back to 1.0860.
