- August 21, 2018
- Posted by: Joey Benedid
- Category: Market News
The Dollar is lower across the board after Trump spoke with Reuters and stated his displeasure with current Fed boss Jerome Powell for hiking rates and not assisting the President with boosting the economy. This is not the first time that the Trump administration has gone against the grain and called out the Federal Reserve. Being independent from the White House, it has been rare for sitting Presidents to comment on the Fed as it is supposed to be immune from political pressures. During the interview, Trump also accused China and Europe of manipulating their currencies. The Dollar is soft ahead of trade talks between China and the US as investors hope for resolution or at least progress in negotiations. Trump has mentioned that he is not anticipating much progress from the talks. With Wednesday’s FOMC Minutes release, investors will be looking for a change in sentiment from the Fed on whether it ebbs from current forecasts calling for two more hikes in 2018.
EUR is seeing gains against the Dollar, based on broad USD weakness. EUR is still under pressure over concerns of contagion effects in Eurozone banks spawning from the Turkish Lira crisis. The ECB will have a meeting on Thursday regarding Monetary Policy. The Pound is also seeing slight gains on the Dollar, again based on Dollar weakness. Sterling continues to be pinned by Brexit concerns, as we inch closer to the March 2019 deadline.
Short term support and resistance is 1.2950 and 1.3188 respectively, with RSI at 52 and the 200-day moving average residing at 1.2836.