Here is what you need to know on Monday, August 24:
The greenback advanced ahead of the weekend, partially backed by encouraging local data, yet also due to profit-taking amid the extreme oversold conditions of the American currency.
Coronavirus: Spain, France and Germany are seeing sharp increases in the number of new daily cases, reaching levels last seen in April. That, alongside contracting business activity is taking its toll on the common currency, which anyway remains near its yearly high against the dollar.
Another round of Brexit talks ended Friday without progress. A UK senior official said that a deal with the EU is still doable in September if they remove unnecessary obstacles, yet EU’s chief negotiator Barnier said that a deal would not be easy to achieve, adding he is disappointed and surprised that talks are not speeding up.
Gold prices entered a consolidative phase in the second half of the week, struggling to recover losses and closing it in the red around at $1,940 a troy ounce. Same goes for crude oil prices with WTI settling at $42 a barrel.
Wall Street advanced on Friday but closed the week pretty much unchanged. US Treasury yields, on the other hand, kept retreating, ending near weekly lows.
At the beginning of the week, New Zealand will publish Q2 Retail Sales, with nothing else relevant scheduled for the rest of the day.
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