The U.S. Dollar is trading in mostly mixed ranges without significant movement as markets take in news of sanctions ahead of key inflationary data tomorrow.
Overview
Crude oil prices are on the rise following an announcement from the White House imposing sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil producers in Rosneft and Lukoil in order to get Russia to negotiate a ceasefire with Ukraine. While lately there had been hope of getting parties to the table, a cancelled meeting between the Russian and American leaders signaled that the progress over the matter has faded. Equities dropped over the news, but oil price surged with Brent Crude jumping 5.0% to trade around $65.0/barrel.
Domestically, traders are looking for clues about the economy from Purchasing Managers Index figures, which will also be released in regions such as the Euro-zone. Expect some reaction as markets also digest reports that the U.S. administration is considering curbs to exports to China when it comes to products featuring U.S.-made software. Caution seems to be the theme at the moment with the Buck up 1.0% thus far for the month, per the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index.
What to Watch This Week…
- Delayed Sept CPI out on Friday
- US, U.K., Euro-zone PMIs Friday 8:30AM
- Compliance Webinar – October 23rd @ 4pm EST – Save your seat
- Monex USA Online is always open
EUR ⇑
The Euro is mostly flat as traders look forward to tomorrow’s PMIs, specifically concerned with how the Euro-zone’s two largest economies, Germany and France, have performed. The German surveys recently have been contractionary when it comes to Manufacturing, but optimistic on Services. France will likely feature negative results from suppliers concerned with the governmental crisis lately. It will matter if the Composite for both countries ends up looking pessimistic as it could further sink euro, which has already fallen by more than 1.0% in October.
CAD ⇓
While the Canadian Dollar is also not moving much, it is important to point out some good news out of our neighbor to the north. Although labor figures have been poor recently along with concerns over a stubborn state of “stagflation,” August Retail Sales came out on the positive, digging themselves out of a hole during the first part of the summer. Gross Domestic Product numbers will be out on Halloween with expectations of a yearly average, scarily close to 1.0%. Anything higher will bode well for “Loonie” values down the line. The currency is down by about 3.0% for the year.
