Dollar a Bit Weaker
May 19, 2023
The dollar is 0.8% and 0.6% weaker today against the New Zealand and Australian currencies and has also settled back 0.4% against the Chinese yuan, 0.3% versus the Swiss franc, 0.2% relative to the euro and sterling and 0.1% relative to the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso.
European equity advances so far this Friday range from 0.5% to 1.5%. There was scant net U.S. stock market movement in the first half hour, by contrast. Pacific Rim exchanges closed up 0.9% in South Korea, 0.8% in Japan, and 0.6% in Australia but down 1.4% in Hong Kong and 0.4% in China.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields jumped 13 basis points higher in the U.K. and climbed by five basis points each in the United States and Germany.
WTI oil is 0.9% softer, whereas Bitcoin and gold prices have firmed 0.4% and 0.2%.
Today’s data release menu was thin. G7 leaders began their summit in Japan, and hope continues that U.S. debt ceiling talks will avert a default.
Japanese consumer price inflation rebounded from March’s half-year low of 3.2% to a 3-month high in April of 3.5%. The core CPI rate, which excludes fresh food prices but includes energy, also firmed to a 3-month high (3.4%), but when energy is excluded as well, the underlying inflation pace in April of 4.1% was the most since December 1981.
German producer price inflation receded further to 4.1% in April, lowest in 25 months and down from a record high of 45.8% touched last August and repeated in the following month.
Georgian producer prices (6.0% lower than a year earlier) posted their largest 12-month decline in 70 months.
Japan’s tertiary index of service sector activity fell 1.7% in March, rose 1.2% in the first quarter, and posted the same average 2.3% increase in fiscal 2022 and was experienced in fiscal 2021.
British consumer confidence printed at -27 in May, its least pessimistic level in fifteen months. Spanish consumer sentiment last month improved to a 3-month high.
A 2.4% year-on-year rise of Canadian retail sales in March was the least since December 2020. Mexican retail sales in March were unchanged on month with a smaller-than-forecast 2.5% 12-month rate of increase.
Copyright 2023, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: German PPI, Japanese CPI
ShareThis
