Morning Commentary & Currency Insights – May 14, 2018

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US-China trade tensions appeared to ease over the weekend as Trump took to Twitter to say that ZTE Corp is allowed to get back to business following policy that banned the Chinese company from purchasing American tech for seven years. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will be traveling to the US on Tuesday to speak with Mnuchin to get back to productive trade talks. The Dollar Index was down slightly after hitting four month highs last week. USD lost momentum last week after a slight miss on inflation data, which has tempered expectations for the Fed to hike rates at an accelerated pace throughout 2018. Oil is trading off the multi-year highs we saw last week, but is still trading above the $70/barrel mark. Following the Iranian sanctions imposed by the US, OPEC has stated that it has the capacity to make up for the supply constraints that Iran will now face. The US has also heeded warning to European countries and companies that those who continue to do business with Iran could also be facing strict US sanctions. Sterling is still soft following last week’s BoE rate decision. Carney has held rates, but has cut growth and inflation forecasts. EUR is up slightly as the Five Star Movement and League have come to an agreement in principle to introduce a flat tax, guaranteed income for the poor and lowering of the age of retirement.

Key data for the week starts on Tuesday with German GDP, Eurozone GDP, US Retail Sales and Japanese GDP. Draghi will speak on Wednesday and Canadian CPI rounds out the week on Friday before leading into the holiday weekend. With USDCAD trading sideways, short term support and resistance is 1.2700 and 1.2800 respectively, while RSI is a neutral 50 and the 200-day moving averages resides at 1.2645.

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