North American Summary and Highlights 18 Apr
Overview - The USD saw modest gains with the help of stronger data from the Philly Fed manufacturing survey.
North American session
The USD was modestly firmer in North America, primarily supported by a bounce in April’s Philly Fed manufacturing index to a 2-year high of 15.5 from 3.2. Initial claims were unchanged and still low at 212k. Comments from Fed’s Williams and Bostic were also USD supportive. A 4.3% fall in March existing home sales was in line with expectations. EUR/USD fell to 1.0645 from 1.0680.
The USD saw similar gains elsewhere, USD/JPY to 154.65 from 154.45, even with a marginal dip after BoJ’s Ueda said a weak JPY could impact inflation and consequently policy.
European morning session
The USD was slightly firmer through the European morning, gaining around 0.1% against the EUR and JPY but seeing little change against GBP and the commodity currencies. The SEK was the best performer, with EUR/SEK dropping around 5 figures on the day to 11.62, while the CHF was also strong, EUR/CHF falling around 20 pips to trade blow 0.97. EUR/NOK traded modestly higher.
There wasn’t much news of any note. The Eurozone current account showed a smaller than expected surplus of EUR29.5bn in February, but there wasn’t any other data of significance.