What you need to know on Tuesday, May 19th:
The greenback was smashed by risk appetite, ending the day lower against most major rivals but the yen. Equities rallied ever since the day started, underpinned throughout the first half of the day by comments from BOE’s Haldane and Fed’s Powell, both leaving doors opened for additional monetary stimulus.
Moderna, a biotech firm, announced encouraging results on an early-stage coronavirus vaccine trial. The next and final stage of the test could be completed by July. Despite the sample reported was quite small, hopes soared. Wall Street closed with substantial gains, with the DJIA roughly 960 points up, the Nasdaq adding 2.6% and the S&P ending the day up over 3.3%. US Treasury yields also advanced with the news.
The EUR/USD pair settled above 1.0900 as Germany and France have proposed an EU recovery fund of E500 billion. According to the German’s Chancellor Merkel, the fund should give grants, no loans to member states, while France’s Macron said it would focus on help countries or regions that have been particularly affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
The Pound also benefited from risk-appetite, although GBP/USD held around 1.2200, with the upside capped by Brexit jitters.
Commodity-linked currencies advanced on dollar’s weakness, but also on firmer crude oil prices, on reports indicating that Chinese oil demand is almost back to pre-virus levels.
Gold prices reached fresh seven and a half year highs, with spot reaching 1,765.19, on the back of easy money, but plunged to 1,730 as risk-appetite took over the financial world.
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