Market Drivers September 17, 2018
- All tight ranges overnight
- EU CPI in lines
- Nikkei 1.20% Dax -0.44%
- Oil $69/bbl
- Gold $1197/oz.
- Bitcoin $6500
Europe and Asia
EU: CPI 2.0%
North America:
USD: Empire Man 8:30
It’s been a very quiet night of trademarked by very narrow ranges and little economic news, but risk FX pairs managed to stage a small rebound from Friday lows as some of the risk off fears abated.
The markets remain on edge regarding the possible fresh set of tariffs from US against China, with President Trump clearly eager to ratchet the tensions. His latest tweet noted that ”tariffs have put the US in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country – and yet cost increases have thus far been almost unnoticeable. If countries will not make fair deals with us, they will be ‘Tariffed!’”
However, latest reports suggested that US is considering a 10% rather than a 25% levy which was taken as sign of relief and may have helped EUR/USD and AUD/USD rally 20 pips from the Friday close.
Still, any move by US is unlikely to be ignored by the Chinese who will most certainly respond in kind and that could reignite the risk off flows as investors begin to fear the slowdown in trade and rise in input costs.
For now, the markets remain awaiting any actual actions from the key players and with little eco data on the calendar today we may remain in a state of suspended animation for the time being.