- Forex on Friday was once again centred around politics.
- UK PM May announced her resignation.
Risk appetite picked up in tot he long weekend for US and UK markets with equities rebounding and aiding a recovery in commodity-FX. The big news came with
The UK’s PM announcing her resignation due to take place on 7th June and then act as caretaker PM until a new leader is elected. Borris Johnson, who is in the running for taking My’s place, a leading Brexiteer and former foreign secretary, said in respect to May’s teary resignation speech, “A very dignified statement from. Thank you for your stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party. It is now time to follow her urgings: to come together and deliver Brexit.”
“Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was less sympathetic and proclaimed that the new Conservative Party leader “must call an immediate election” once in power. The UK is due to leave the EU on October 31 and whoever leads Britain post-May will have their work cut out for them,” analysts at ANZ Bank explained.
Elsewhere, Markets US April Durable Goods Orders came from the U.S. calendar, missing estimates by a small amount (-2.1%m/m, est. -2.0%m/m) and non-defence, ex transport (0.0%m/m, est. -0.1%). “However, downward revisions to March gave a decidedly more negative profile to the volatile data series (headline +1.7%m/m from +2.6%m/m, non-defence/ex transport -0.6%m/m from flat). This raises downside risks for both Q1 GDP and Q2 GDP,” analysts at Westpac explained.
As for yields, the US 10 Year Treasury Yield ranged sideways in a 2.31%-2.33% range, the 2 Year between 2.15% and 2.17%.
Currency price action
The analysts at Westpac summarised Friday’s price action as follows:
- EUR/USD rose from 1.1180 to 1.1210, ticking up a little on Monday’s open. While populists and far right parties performed strongly in some EU elections e.g. France, in general the big winners were the Greens and pro-business Liberal parties.
- GBP/USD chopped up 60 pips, to 1.2730.
- USD/JPY fell from 109.75 to 109.30 without obvious catalyst.
- AUD/USD rose from 0.6885 in the Sydney afternoon to 0.6930.
- NZD/USD rose from 0.6515 to 0.6555.
- AUD/NZD rose from 1.0555 to 1.0580.
Key notes from U.S. session:
DJIA logs longest weekly losing streak since June 2011
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