Europe Summary and Highlights 4 February

European morning session

The CAD extended the recovery seen overnight in the European morning, with USD/CAD dropping a further half a figure to 1.4420. EUR/USD also gained 40 pips to 1.0340, but remains slightly below Friday’s close. Other pairs are all essentially back to Friday’s closing levels with the tariff threats to Mexico and Canada now seen as unlikely to be carried out, while the risk of tariffs on the EU remains.

There wasn’t much news in the European morning. The Riksbank monetary policy minutes were interpreted as slightly on the hawkish side, suggesting the Riksbank easing cycle may be coming to an end, and EUR/SEK fell back 5 figures to 11.41 through the morning as front end Swedish yields edged higher.

Asia session

In late North America session, Trump announced that he will also delay the tariff on Canada to give time for negotiation, similar to Mexico, after a talk with Trudeau. The focus of the Asia session is on the 10% Chinese tariff that will be imposed soon and market participants are waiting to see if a Canadian/Mexican style 30 days negotiation period will be announced. USD is going higher to prepare for the worst with U.S. Treasury Yields higher in the front end. USD/JPY is currently trading 0.23% higher at 155.05.

Regional sentiment is still faring better than U.S. equity space while waiting for the result whether Chinese tariffs will be imposed. HK and Japanese equities are up more than a percent but have retraced from high while U.S. equity indexes are in the red. AUD/USD is down 0.65% to 0.6186, NZD/USD is also down 0.67% while USD/CAD rose 0.4% as oil weakens and USD solid. Else, EUR/USD is down 0.55% and GBP/USD is down 0.46%.