Good morning
After being pulled one way and then the other, we seem to be finishing the week with a stronger US dollar and a weaker GBP. Some hawkish comments from Feds Mester suggesting she saw a compelling case for a 50bps rise at the last meeting helped the dollar, as did the news that a couple of major US banks have added in a 25 bps rise in June to their Fed forecasts. Meanwhile GBP found no support from this mornings retail sales release that showed a decent m/m rise, and talk from Pill that BoE may slow the pace of rate rises also weighs on GBP.
EUR is also lower against USD, the pair now 1.0640, some reasonably hawkish comments from Lane and Nagel failing to stop EURUSD make lowest levels since early Jan. Still EUR is stronger against GBP, GBPEUR languishing down around 1.1200 as I type.
CITI have looked at downside AUDUSD and downside USDJPY, the first from a more technical perspective, the latter on potential yen strength following Ueda’s nomination for BoJ governor. Leads me to look at AUDJPY, which, at around 92.00, is towards the upper end of the two month range. A three month 90.00 AUDJPY put costs a hefty 200 yen pips, add in an 85.00 knock out and the cost comes down to 30 yen pips. We’ve not been below 85.00 for almost a year.
Risk sentiment is certainly taking a bit of a battering as US/China relations still struggle to recover from the balloon saga. China have imposed both fines and sanctions on two US firms for selling weapons to Taiwan, while Russia have launched yet another missile attack against Ukraine, one target being Ukraine’s largest oil refinery.
Little on the calendar today, as we know this doesn’t automatically mean a quiet trading day but I don’t mind too much if it does. The plan for me this weekend is to finally finish Game of Thrones. We have just two episodes to go which on one hand is quite exciting and on the other hand I’m a bit gutted as I have really quite enjoyed the whole eight series.
I know there are plenty of other things to watch, or indeed I should perhaps be more constructive with my time and as the evenings get lighter I should instead start some sort of health-based activity. Feels like a bit too much hard work though……….
- 13.30 Feds Barkin speaks
- 13.45 Feds Bowman speaks
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