Majr FX rates are little changed, the USD is a touch stronger against most of the majors.
Meanwhile, oil is not showing a lot of change either.
The excuse du jour (du week, if that works) is waiting on Federal Reserve Chair Powell speaking Friday US time:
Yesterday during US time Powell's colleagues were uniformly hawkish.
Powell will not be throwing them under the bus. Expect hawk comments from him also.
Back to oil. Here are a few snippets from an ANZ piece I glanced on some of the demand and supply factors impacting:
- The most recent Congestion Index data from TomTom shows Asia Pacific, European and North American traffic levels all posting strong weekly growth in the week to August 24. Nationwide congestion levels in China rebounded after the previous week's drop, according to Baidu data.
- Saudi Arabia was joined by Libya and Congo in supporting the view that supply curbs may be needed to stabilise the oil market. Even so, supply side issues continue to crop up. Kazakhstan's exports of crude may be impacted for months amid repair works required on three damage moorings at the port facility. Daily volumes had already been down 20% due to a string of other maintenance issues. Approximately 1.3mb/d was expected in August.
Re that Kazakhstan reference, this from earlier this week:
