The theme today, if you could call it one, is a clash of many themes. They’ve come together to hurt the US dollar.
1. Japanese downgrade causing some yen strength that’s feeding into some USD weakness
2. Chinese worries after the PMIs. AUD was slammed early and the RBA is coming up but it’s climbed back alongside most commodities
3. Gold was slammed down to $1142 after the referendum but the bulls are making a stand and the India news on Friday is also bullish.
4. Sterling is the top performer on a solid manufacturing PMI.
5. Oil is flat at $66 after a flush down to a long-term low of $63.72 earlier.
6. The relentless bid in the bond market continued in the early going but has lifted. Here is why the Fed should be extremely worried.
7. The euro is near a session high at 1.2483, mostly because of USD weakness but also because the ECB’s Lautenschlaeger sees little room for further monetary easing.
8. The Russian ruble is in freefall, down 5% after falling as much as 9% before the central bank began to intervene. It’s down 18% in the past week.