Forex news from the European morning session - 16 July 2020
Headlines:
- Twitter down in pre-market trading after hacking incident
- Japan reportedly finds a record of at least 502 new coronavirus cases today
- Eurozone May trade balance €8.0 billion vs €4.5 billion expected
- Japan says to exclude Tokyo from 'Go To' travel campaign
- Osaka reportedly finds over 60 new coronavirus cases for second straight day
- Tokyo reportedly finds a record 286 new coronavirus cases in latest update today
- UK June jobless claims change -28.1k vs 528.9k prior
- IMF's Georgieva: Rising global debt levels are a serious concern
Markets:
- USD leads, AUD an NZD lag
- European equities lower; E-minis down 0.7%
- US 10-year yields down 1.3 bps to 0.617%
- Gold down 0.3% to $1,805.73
- WTI down 1.1% to $40.74
- Bitcoin down 1.5% to $9,080
There wasn't much notable headlines on the session as the market continues to await the ECB policy decision later in the day, before getting to US weekly jobless claims.
Risk stayed on the defensive throughout, with Chinese stocks seen slumping heavily in the closing hours and that kept a more sour mood in European morning trade.
US tech stocks are notably lower in pre-market trading and that is weighing on sentiment a little, not helped by the Twitter hacking fiasco seen in the late hours yesterday.
As such, the dollar is keeping firmer but nothing too significant on the session. EUR/USD eased from 1.1400 to 1.1380 while cable fell from 1.2560 levels to 1.2520.
AUD/USD also kept under 0.7000 for the most part around 0.6970-90 as risk showed little signs of fluctuation in European trading today.
All eyes are on the ECB now but it should be a relative non-event before we get to North American trading later in the day.
