Safe havens suffer as optimism returns to market
Typical market correlations broke down last week, after the forced merger of Credit Suisse with UBS had allayed European banking concerns only temporarily. The dollar fell against every major currency except the Japanese yen, as investors skewed safe havens and rediscovered their appetite for risk. As far as investors are concerned, no news is good […]
Silicon Valley Bank failure hammers risk assets, drives safe-haven flows
Inflation data and central bank policy took a back seat late last week to the news coming out of California that the record fast increase in US rates had claimed its first major victim: a mid-size bank that had severely mismanaged its interest rate management. Stocks fell into Friday close, and the traditional risk havens […]
G10 currencies in holding pattern as interest rates march higher
US inflation data came out higher than expected last week, supporting the dollar against most other currencies. Critically, there are signs that the recent easing trend, on which so many hopes are deposited, is petering out and that inflation is stabilising at unacceptably high levels. Rates rose worldwide, with markets repricing their expectations for central […]
Dollar mixed ahead of all-important US inflation report
The recent rally in the US dollar eased against most major currencies last week, as markets somewhat tempered bets in favour of higher Federal Reserve rates. The week was mixed overall. The dollar rose against most emerging market currencies following the surge higher in US yields, although it ended lower against almost all of its […]
Fed to hint at an end to its rate hike cycle?
Chinese authorities are suggesting that they intend to catch up with the time lost during the zero-COVID experiment by buoying consumption, and the direct beneficiaries of higher Chinese demand are celebrating. Commodity currencies, like the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars were the best performing G10 currencies last week, while the rest of them traded […]
Hawkish Dollar mixed after soft US retail sale
Summary: Trading in the foreign exchange market has been relatively choppy so far this week. The US dollar has continued to trade largely on the back foot against most currencies, as investors bet that theFederal Reserve will end its rate hike cycle following its March policy meeting. Wednesday’s soft US retail salesdata further fuelled these […]
US dollar outperforms, as Bank of Japan market jitters heighten yen volatility.
Summary: CAD rose to a one-month high on the US dollar, the euro struggled, while volatility in the Japanese yensurged to multi-year highs during an eventful trading session in the FX market on Tuesday.The dollar was actually broadly stronger against most currencies yesterday, though the pound was a rareexception, as a robust UK labour report […]
European currencies sink, dollar soars as the news from Ukraine get grimmer
The worsening humanitarian and security crisis brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to buffet financial markets. There are volatile moves and a flight to safe havens everywhere, but European assets are being punished with particular severity, due to both geography and the continent’s vulnerability to energy supply disruptions. The euro and the […]
In the end, US intelligence warnings were fully vindicated as Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.
For the next two days, markets girated wildly, but a sense that Western sanctions would avoid cutting Russia off entirely from the financial world fuelled a late rally on Friday on most risk assets. As this is written, this is already outdated, as Western sanctions escalated over the weekend and Putin put nuclear forces on […]
Safe-havens benefit as Ukraine headlines worsen
Inflation and central banks have taken a backseat to geopolitics in financial markets, and currency markets are no exception. CAD The Canadian dollar ended last week close to the levels at which it started the week, after a volatile few days in which the currency benefited from rising crude oil prices but was hurt by […]
