North American Summary and Highlights 7 Feb

North American session

A very quiet North American session saw almost no movement in FX rates, and little in the way of news. USD/JPY reversed an early dip in line with UST yields, while equities advanced. Fed speakers, Kugler Collins and particularly Barkin sounded cautious over easing. BoC minutes detailed concern over inflation, but had little impact. 

December’s US trade deficit of $62.2bn was in line with expectations if slightly wider than November’s $61.9bn, Canada’s December trade deficit of C$0.3bn was however weaker than expected, falling from a November surplus of C$1.06bn. December US consumer credit with a rise of $1.561bn was well below expectations.

European morning session

The USD generally edged a little higher through the European morning in quiet trade. GBP was the best performer, with GBP/USD gaining 30 pips and EUR/GBP losing 15 pips, although there was no significant UK news behind the move. USD/JPY edged a little higher to 148.15 after a dip below 148 early on, and the USD was also a tough higher against the AUD, but EUR/USD was little changed around 1.0765.  

The main news was weak German industrial production data for December, which fell a much larger than expected 1.6% m/m, extending the very negative 3m/3m downtrend to close to an annualised 9%. Swedish monetary policy minutes indicated that here was more of a case for easing than in November, but Deputy governor Jansson played down the chance of an easing as early as the March meeting. EUR/SEK was not much changed on the session.