Intraday Market Thoughts

USD Grinds Lower Pre CPI

by Adam Button
Mar 12, 2018 22:02

The ebb in the US dollar continued Monday as the fallout from non-farm payrolls continued to reverberate. CHF was Tuesday's top performer, while CAD. Australian home loans data highlights the Asia-Pacific session.

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The absence of economic data for North American traders kept the focus on political drama in Japan and Brexit developments. Finance Minister Aso is embroiled in a real estate scandal and that's raised questions about his entire government, leading to some modest yen strength. Aso is considering not attending this month's G20 meeting.

Meanwhile, the ebb and flow of Brexit news gave the pound a lift and cable is now testing resistance at the two-week high.

Politics were largely a non-factor and US stock markets were flat. Trump is reportedly interviewing Larry Kudlow to lead his economic team. He is an unabashed free trader and is strongly anti-tariff so that would be a welcome development, albeit a confusing one.

Looking ahead, January Australian home loans data is due at 0030 GMT and expected to dip 0.2% after a 2.3% drop in December.

AUD has been a strong performer since Friday and is trading at a two-week high. The rebound comes after a miserable February but the RBA is slowly growing more optimistic and the solid uptrend since early 2016 is intact. The flipside is that commodities are beginning to struggle. Iron ore has fallen in seven consecutive sessions as uncertainty on steel mounts.

 
 

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