Yen was the leader, kiwi was the laggard
The Japanese yen and Swiss franc were at the top of the currency leaderboard last week, while the commodity bloc lagged.
That's exactly the sort of performance you would expect during the worst week for the S&P 500 since March. Is that it for this round of risk aversion? Or is there more to come?
Looking ahead, there are reasons for optimism that risk appetite will return. The NZD/JPY took a beating but it bounced near the 61.8% retracement and closed higher on Friday. It will be critical that those lows hold.
One thing that stands out on the FX performance chart is dollar weakness. Given the fears, you would have expected it to do a bit better but weak PPI and CPI readings were a dollar drag as the market begins to abandon the December rate hike narrative.
