New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Risk Off as Mutant, More Infectious Covid-19 Strain Emerges in U.K.
December 21, 2020
An out-of-control strain of Covid in Great Britain has elicited new travel restriction by many continental European governments, a big sell-off in European stocks and U.S. stock futures, lower sovereign debt yields, a drop in oil prices exceeding 3.0%, and an intra-day 1.4% rebound in the trade-weighted dollar. The other pieces of adverse Covid news […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week’s Menu: December 19 – 25, 2020
December 18, 2020
Central Banks: Monetary policy reviews are scheduled in Turkey and Thailand. The People’s Bank of China will announce its prime loan rate levels for the coming month, and minutes get published from the BOJ Board meeting. Events and Holidays: Most markets are closed Friday for Christmas, Japan being a notable exception, and many markets are […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Last Meaningful Week of 2020 Drawing to Close
December 18, 2020
Ahead of the approaching year-end holidays, this week saw a rush of central bank policy reviews and data releases, many coming a couple of days earlier in December than is customary in other months. Foreign exchange trading tends to lose some breadth and depth in the final weeks of December, making currency relationships prone to […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Dollar Slinks to Another 32-Month Low and Several Central Banks Leave Interest Rates As Is
December 17, 2020
The DXY trade-weighted dollar index fell below 90 to as low as 89.79. Overnight losses occurred across of broad cross-section of key bilateral dollar relationships amounting to 0.9% versus the kiwi, 0.8% relative to sterling, 0.7% versus the Australian dollar, 0.5% against the yen and euro, 0.3% vis-a-vis the Canadian dollar, and 0.2% versus the […] More
Central Bank Watch
FOMC Statement, Forecasts, and Powell Press Conference
December 16, 2020
Today’s FOMC statement elaborates on text in the sentence dealing with monthly increased holdings of Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities, spelling out the amounts of at least $80 billion in the former and at least $40 billion in the latter. Those figures in fact represent the current pace, so the added words do not […] More
Central Bank Watch
FOMC Preview
December 16, 2020
In the six weeks since the Federal Open Market Committee met in early November, risk aversion has lessened as multiple approved Covid vaccines have gone from a developing stage to distribution. The dollar fell about 3% against the euro but held steady relative to the yen, another currency with safe haven appeal. The 10-year Treasury […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Mixed Economic Tidings
December 16, 2020
The message from December purchasing manager survey preliminary findings is that vaccine hopes eclipsed the need to tighten activity restrictions to combat an intensifying wave of the infection. The data clearly signal that economic activity in the fourth quarter declined only slightly compared to the huge hit taken when the first Covid wave hit in […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Electoral College Honors Voters’ Choice and Picks Biden; Data Focus on China
December 15, 2020
The dollar is little changed today. It’s biggest move, a 0.4% decline against sterling, comes as trade talks were extended past the deadline and as British labor market data revealed a full return of average wage earnings growth to the pre-pandemic pace but also a larger-than-forecast 64.3k jump in jobless insurance claims due to a […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Risk On Despite Gigantic Hacking Incident
December 14, 2020
Russia again is being accused of an enormous cyber crime centered on Google. Many, many passwords have been compromised. Global Covid cases over the past 3 days (72 hours) totaled just slightly less than 2 million, and the worldwide death count was nearly 30k. There were almost 700k cases and over 6.5k deaths in the […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week’s Menu: December 12 -18, 2020
December 11, 2020
Central Banks: Monetary policies will be reviewed by the Federal Reserve and in Switzerland, Norway, Great Britain, Hungary, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, the Czech Republic, Russia, Mexico and Colombia. FOMC macroeconomic projections will be updated. Reserve Bank of Australia minutes and the Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey of corporate expectations and conditions will be published. […] More
