Forex news for North American trade on April 21, 2020:
- May US oil settles at $9.06 in final trade for the contract
- ECB may discuss taking junk bonds as collateral in call tomorrow - report
- Mexican central bank cuts rates by 50 basis points in surprise move
- US hydroxychloroquine study shows no benefit to the drug for COVID-19
- Details of the latest US stimulus package revealed, Trump talks about more to come
- Russian oil minister says no need to dramatize drop in US oil futures
- UK reports 823 new coronavirus deaths
- New York state coronavirus deaths 481 vs 478 yesterday
- New Zealand GDT price index -4.2% at latest auction
- Bank of America boosts 18-month gold target to $3000
- US March existing home sales 5.27m vs 5.30m expected
- Philadelphia Fed nonmanufacturing business index -96.4 in April versus -35.1 in March
- Canada February retail sales +0.3% vs +0.3% m/m expected
Markets:
- Gold down $11 to $1684
- WTI May contract settles at $10.03
- WTI June contract down $7.38 to $13.10
- US 10-year note yield down 4.25 bps to 0.56%
- S&P 500 down 86 points, or 3.1%, to 2736 in largest decline in 3 weeks
- USD leads, GBP lags
The pound was the big mover on the day as it struggled from the moment European trading opened and was hit at the fix and again the London close in a drop to 1.2248 at the lows. It recovered 50 pips from there.
USD/CAD rose to the highs of the day in Europe and chopped lower in North American trade despite the beating in June oil futures. It rose as high as 1.4250 before peeling back 50 pips.
One headline that weighed on the US dollar was a tweet from Trump about bailing out the oil market. He also later tweeted about signing the latest bailout package and working on another one. The spending is truly mind-blowing.
At the same time, the US can borrow whatever it wants in its own currency while in Europe that's not the case. Italian 10-year yields made a troubling 22 basis point move higher to 2.15%. The euro didn't respond but that's going to put more pressure on the ECB. EUR/USD finished the day flat.
USD/JPY was solid once again despite the sour risk tone. The low of 107.28 came early in Europe but it ended near the highs of the day at 107.77. Overall the pair was up 15 pips on the day.
The shock headline of the day was from New Zealand where Orr talked about monetizing the debt. That weighed on NZD for a time but has evidently forgotten by the time North American trade came around as the pair recovered from a low of 0.5934 to 0.5972.
