European Summary and Highlights 18 Apr
The USD was slightly firmer through the European morning, gaining around 0.1% against the EUR and JPY but seeing little change against GBP and the commodity currencies.
European morning session
The USD was slightly firmer through the European morning, gaining around 0.1% against the EUR and JPY but seeing little change against GBP and the commodity currencies. The SEK was the best performer, with EUR/SEK dropping around 5 figures on the day to 11.62, while the CHF was also strong, EUR/CHF falling around 20 pips to trade blow 0.97. EUR/NOK traded modestly higher.
There wasn’t much news of an note. The Eurozone current account showed a smaller than expected surplus of EUR29.5bn in February, but there wasn’t any other data of significance.
Asia session
Kanda says Japan is in talks on FX and other issues with US & others and G7 reconfirmed commitment on forex stance put forward by Japan after attending the G20 meeting. While BoJ's Noguchi says it is essential for BoJ to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy, it is the lack of strength in the rhetoric that have dissipated the impact of verbal intervening and reverse the early bids for JPY. As USD/JPY goes higher and higher, it seems Kanda is getting serious to at least stall the weakness in JPY. USD/JPY is down 0.08% to 154.26 with both the U.S. Treasury and JGB yields losing.
The Australian March labor report is mixed with unemployment rate beating estimate at 3.8% but headline employment change is negative and participation rate slipped. The positive side is full time employment increased and the Australia labor market is still tight. Risk sentiment is broadly positive and commodities solid. This supported the AUD/USD and see it trading 0.28% higher at 0.6453, NZD/USD is 0.13% higher at 0.5924 while USD/CAD slipped 0.15% with oil's losses paused. Else, EUR/USD is up 0.06% and GBP/USD is 0.11% higher.