The headline US durable goods orders report was stronger than expected with a 1.8% increase for January, but the figure was inflated by aircraft orders and underlying sales declined 0.2% on the month following a revised 0.9% gain for January. Pending home sales data was weaker than expected with a 2.8% decline for January which pushed annual growth to 12- month lows. The Euro rallied to highs around 1.0630 after the US data as the dollar faded slightly.
Dallas Fed President Kaplan stated that the Fed should increase interest rates in the near future which helped boost speculation of a rate hike in March with futures markets indicating the chances of a move had increased to around 50%. The shift helped underpin the dollar and the Euro retreated below 1.0600 and held just below this level on Tuesday.
Return to geopolitics The decision from the US to wage war on Iran has, of course, taken its toll on markets. The obvious move in such an environment from investors is to de-risk. That decision carries the tell-tale impacts in FX of boosting the Dollar’s value, putting EM under pressure, and causing a flood of […]
Fade America There have been times during Trump’s second term that have had markets and financial commentators alike calling for an era of ‘sell-America’. Sell-America is the notion describing a scenario in which investor sentiment sours towards the US so much so that valuations across US assets decline. This is a unique scenario because many […]
An upset in the minutes Minutes of the Federal Reserve’s January meeting were published yesterday evening. As you may tell from the market reaction, the contents of such minutes were far from in line with market consensus. If you cast your mind back to January 28th, the FOMC voted 10-2 to keep rates on hold. […]