Forex news for US trading on January 21, 2020:
- CDC confirms that traveler from China diagnosed with coronavirus in Seattle
- Boeing confirms 737 Max won't return to service until mid-2020
- New Zealand GDT price index +1.7%
- Trump says he is serious about European car tariffs if there is no trade deal
- Chinese vice premier Han Zheng: Phase one deal is good for US, China and the world
- Canada manufacturing sales for November -0.6% versus -0.5% estimate
Markets:
- Gold down $2 to $1558
- WTI crude oil down 20-cents to $58.34
- S&P 500 down 9 points to 3221
- US 10-year yields down 5 bps to 1.77%
- JPY leads, AUD lags
A steady stream of coronavirus news eventually sent USD/JPY to the lows of the day and weighed on broad risk trades. The pair initially held the European lows near 109.90 but a second wave of selling led to a fall to 109.76.
EUR/USD was also under pressure as it fell 50 pips and EUR/USD gave back data-fueled gains to finish lower.
Cable rose as high as 1.3087 at the start of North American trading but sagged later as risk slipped and finished near 1.3050.
The losers in the latter half of the NY day were the commodity currencies on reminders that SARS cut 1-2 points of GDP growth from China back in 2003.
What really pushed risk lower was the CDC report about a case in the US to bring total countries affected to 5.
