Morning Commentary & Currency Insights – August 15, 2018

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The Dollar Index continues to climb, breaking above highs that we saw in July 2017. Signs that the US economy remains robust ahead of what is expected to be another interest rate hike next month have helped the Dollar dominate against other currencies over the course of the last few weeks. After the freefall that we saw out of Turkey, the Lira has strung together a couple days of stability helping currencies outside of the safe haven group make up some ground on the Dollar. US Retail sales came out this morning this morning slightly below original expectations, but last months numbers were revised lower effectively issuing a flat number. CAD is still trading within range of the US Dollar as we await CPI (2.5% vs 2.5%) from North of the border on Friday morning.

EUR remains under pressure from the impact of a Lira collapse as eurozone banks have significant exposure to the Lira and the Turkish government has made it more difficult to liquidate Lira positions through the swap market in an attempt to lessen the sell off. Sterling is lower as well after we saw weaker than expect wage growth yesterday. The BoE is unlikely to hike rates for the next 12 months, meaning that while data will be important, Brexit negotiations are paramount at this point.

Short term support and resistance is 1.2950 and 1.3230 respectively, with RSI at 55 and the 200-day moving average residing at 1.2829.

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