After facing down its longest losing streak since early October at the beginning of this week, the United States Dollar managed to reverse its fortunes during yesterday’s trading session and into this morning.
Overview
Though markets are a bit tighter in the US today thanks to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving banking holiday, FX markets are not taking the day off and the Dollar has gained, since midday Tuesday, north of half a percent against most major currencies.The big news overnight came out of Israel, as reports broke that both the Israeli government and Hamas leaders had agreed to a deal releasing 50 Hamas-held hostages in exchange for a 4-day ceasefire in the region. Many of the details remain murky, but the main points of the deal have geopolitical actors around the world breathing a sigh of relief. Oil prices dropped overnight substantially, partially as a result of this remarkable de-escalation and also as OPEC+ said that it would delay its meeting, originally scheduled for this week, to next. The cartel is largely expected to cut supply as demand fears persist around the world, but clearly with the delay of the meeting, this action will not happen just yet. Petrocurrencies are down as a result.The US economy this morning had quite a mixed story from its economic releases. Both initial and continuing jobless claims came in well below market consensus, highlighting – once again – the ever-surprising resilience of the US labor market. On the other side of the coin, however, durable goods orders showed an even deeper contraction through the month of October than markets expected in yet another warning sign of waning demand. Overall, though, it seems markets are leaning into the holiday spirit and favoring good news over bad.
What to Watch Today…
- US Preliminary November PMI, Friday 9:45AM
- Holiday Hours: Today – Wednesday, Nov 22, 8:30a-5p EST; Closed tomorrow, Thursday, Nov 23; and Open Friday, Nov 24, 8:30a-3p EST
Monex USA Online is always open
GBP ⇓
Pound Sterling this morning has erased a large chunk of the gains it saw over the past few trading sessions to slide just shy of half a percent against the Dollar. Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt spoke this morning and outlined the UK’s budgetary future, keeping bond issuance plans unchanged while cutting some taxes, overall delivering quite the fiscal boost to the UK economy, but depressing the Pound.
AUD ⇓
Mostly on news out of the Middle East, the Australian and New Zealand dollars lost ground in tandem this morning against USD. Though the losses of the Antipodeans are not to the extent of some other major currencies, the nations’ petro-driven currencies are clearly impacted by both yesterday’s de-escalation of the Israel-Hamas war and OPEC+’s decision to delay its meeting a week.
