Firmer Dollar
August 14, 2023
In overnight trading, the dollar touched a 9-week high of 145.33 yen and its best level against the Russian ruble since right after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a year and a half ago. At 27.222 lira per dollar, Turkey’s currency came very close to its record low earlier this month, and the Chinese yuan dropped to a 6-week low of 7.2665. The weighted DXY dollar index touched a 5-week high of 103.02.
U.S. equity futures and Continental European stock markets are marginally firmer, contrasting with share price declines this Monday of 1.6% in Hong Kong, 1.4% in Singapore, 1.3% in Japan and Taiwan, 0.9% in Australia, and 0.8% in South Korea.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields rose three basis points in Japan but declined two bps in Germany and a basis point in the United States and Great Britain. Bitcoin‘s price is 0.3% higher, gold is flat, and oil has dipped 0.2%.
Argentine presidential election primaries saw the extreme-right Javier Milei capture more votes than the incumbent Union Party.
New Zealand’s service sector purchasing managers index, which touched a 57-month high of 58.6 in August 2022, dropped to an 18-month low of 47.8 last month. June’s reading was revised from marginally above the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction to a marginally below 50.
Ireland’s construction PMI sank 4.7 points to a 7-month low of 45.6 in July.
German wholesale prices dropped month-on-month for a fourth straight time, but the 2.8% 12-month rate of decline was not quite as deep in July as June’s 2.9% decrease, which had been the most in three years. Germany’s record WPI inflation rate of 23.8% occurred in April 2022.
Indian wholesale price inflation remained negative at -1.36% in July but not as much so as the 4.12% year-on-year drop experienced in June. July’s uptick was concentrated in food, which shifted from a 1.2% year-on-year price drop in June to a 7.75% on-year advance.
Polish consumer price inflation slowed to a 17-month low in July of 10.8% from a 26-year high of 18.4% last February. Similarly, Slovakian CPI inflation dropped to its 17-month low of 9.7% versus a 22-year high of 15.4% in February.
Finnish CPI inflation, which decelerated from a 4-decade high of 9.1% in late 2022 to a 14-month low of 6.3% in June rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.5% last month.
Indian consumer price inflation rose to a 15-month high in July. At 7.4% such exceeded expectations by a full percentage point and was the second rise in a row following 4.8% in June and a 25-month low of 4.31% in May.
Copyright 2023, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: Argentina's presidential primary election, Indian CPI and WPI
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