North American Summary and Highlights 5 Mar
Overview - The USD was firm on Middle East worries, but saw a late correction from its highs.
European and North American sessions
While Europe saw brief dips in both the oil price and USD, anxieties over the Middle East built through the North American session with oil seeing strong gains and equities sliding, before a late correction as the US Treasury stated it would announce measures to combat rising oil prices.
The commodity currencies came particular under pressure with AUD/USD seeing lows below .70 from .7050 and USD/CAD seeing highs above 1.37 from 1.3640 with only partial late corrections. EUR/USD was relatively stable, returning to near 1.16 after bouncing above in Europe and drifting below in North America. EUR/GBP was slightly weaker with GBP/USD finding support at 1.33. USD/JPY rose as high as 157.85 from around 157 before a late correction to 157.50.
US data was on the firm side of expectations with weekly initial claims unchanged at 213k and Q4 non-farm productivity and unit labor costs both increasing by 2.8% annualized, but had little impact.