Forex news from the European trading session - 30 June 2020
Headlines:
- EU finalises list of 'safe travel' countries starting from tomorrow; US not included
- UK PM Johnson: We cannot be prisoners of the coronavirus crisis
- BOE's Haldane: Risks to the economy remain considerable, two-sided
- PBOC to reduce funding costs for smaller firms and rural sectors from 1 July - report
- Eurozone June preliminary CPI +0.3% vs +0.2% y/y expected
- More on the Australian state of Victoria imposing fresh lockdowns in Melbourne
- China says will take retaliatory measures on US ending special treatment of HK
- Spain Q1 final GDP -5.2% vs -5.2% q/q prelim
- France June preliminary CPI +0.1% vs +0.4% y/y expected
- UK Q1 final GDP -2.2% vs -2.0% q/q prelim
- Australia: Victoria state to impose 4-week lockdown on virus hotspot suburbs
Markets:
- USD leads, EUR lags on the day
- European equities mixed; E-minis up 0.1%
- US 10-year yields up 0.7 bps to 0.63%
- Gold down 0.3% to $1,768.10
- WTI down 1.5% to $39.10
- Bitcoin down 0.3% to $9,150
It is the final trading day of the month, quarter and half-year and a lot of the focus will come down to how the flows will play out ahead of the closing stages later today - with a lot of emphasis on FX to be on the London fix later in the day.
Risk sentiment continues to be more choppy in general as we see European indices and US futures fluctuate between gains and losses before holding mild gains for the most part ahead of North American trading currently.
The DAX is up by 0.5% but UK FTSE is down 0.3% while US futures are mildly higher around 0.1% after having been trading lower around 0.3% to 0.5% for most of the session.
In short, risk sentiment is still indecisive while holding some cautious tones - especially earlier in the session when the Australian state of Victoria reimposed fresh lockdowns.
Meanwhile, the dollar is keeping firmer as we navigate through the month-end and quarter-end flows with EUR/USD testing support at 1.1200 while AUD/USD also retreated from 0.6880 to 0.6833 but is keeping just above support at 0.6845-50 for now.
Cable is also keeping at the lows, down 0.3% to 1.2260 levels with USD/CAD touching 1.3700 before staying just under there currently.
Looking ahead, today is one of those days where anything can happen and flows may very well just negate all the happenings in the market and do what it does.
I want to say window dressing is also part of the equation but we'll see how sentiment develops during the day especially with the latest US coronavirus numbers still to follow.
