Marketwatch EU & UK

Daily Insights
April 18, 2024

  • After rallying for the past five days, the US dollar lost ground against its G10 peers overnight driven by a fall in USDJPY. Tensions in the Middle East continue to drive risk appetite with markets remaining cautious over further escalation in the region. Aside from geopolitical risks yesterday markets were contending with headlines coming from the IMF’s spring meetings. There was some speculation that the Finance Ministers of the US, Japan, and South Korea held talks to discuss the recent sharp fall in the Japanese yen and Korean Won.
  • The dollar index slipped a touch helping to push USDJPY off its recent highs back toward 154. This also helped the pound and single currency to rally a little, however EURUSD continues to trade below 1.07 and cable remains capped at 1.25.
  • The outlook for US interest rates and the timing of potential cuts from the Fed keep the greenback elevated and yesterday Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said that monetary policy is in a good place, adding that the Fed should not be in a hurry to cut interest rates. Mester still expects inflation to fall further but wants to see more data to gain confidence that it is moving back towards the central banks 2% target. This afternoon we look forward to the release of weekly US jobless claims and the Philly Fed Business Outlook which is expected to show activity declining again after two months of expansion.

Economic Calendar

:
AUD - Employment Change
:
AUD - Unemployment Rate
:
AUD - NAB Quarterly Business Confidence
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AUD - RBA Bulletin
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JPY - Tertiary Industry Activity m/m
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CHF - Trade Balance
:
CNY - Foreign Direct Investment ytd/y
:
EUR - Current Account
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EUR - Spanish 10-y Bond Auction
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EUR - German Buba Monthly Report
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EUR - German Buba President Nagel Speaks
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USD - Unemployment Claims
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USD - Philly Fed Manufacturing Index
:
USD - FOMC Member Bowman Speaks
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USD - FOMC Member Williams Speaks
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USD - Existing Home Sales
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USD - CB Leading Index m/m
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All - IMF Meetings
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USD - Natural Gas Storage
:
USD - FOMC Member Bostic Speaks
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CHF - Gov Board Member Martin Speaks
:
JPY - National Core CPI y/y

Market Indicators

Currency Pairs
Pair High Low
eur/gbp 0.85681 0.85616
gbp/usd 1.24766 1.24472
gbp/aud 1.9357 1.93111
gbp/nzd 2.10745 2.10295
usd/jpy 154.408 153.95
eur/usd 1.06864 1.06641
gbp/jpy 192.484 191.895
eur/cnh 7.74172 7.7235
usd/cnh 7.25002 7.23993
Equities and Commodities
Nasdaq 100 17628.4
DOW 37874.6
S&P 500 5048.36
BRENT CRUDE 87.52
WTI 82.84
GOLD 2379.46

This document is for information purposes only and does not constitute any recommendation or solicitation to any person to enter into any transaction or adopt any trading strategy, nor does it constitute any prediction of likely future movements in exchange rates or prices or any representation that any such future movements will not exceed those shown on any illustration. All exchange rates and figures appearing are for illustrative purposes only. You are advised to make your own independent judgment with respect to any matter contained herein.

About Simon Walker

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Simon Walker is head of the GPS Capital Markets trade desk in our London office where he is responsible for covering market risk in European hours. He has over 25 years’ experience in foreign exchange, working in both sales and trading.