The markets were quiet in terms of scheduled Tier-1 news, but there have been some decent headline trades and a slightly surprising announcement that the US President's preferred Fed Chair would be J. Powell for a second term.
Market Wrap
The US dollar index is rising on increasing bullish sentiment around the re-nomination of Fed Chair Powell. So far, the consensus is that Jerome Powell has been able to navigate the trickiest period in financial history since the Great Financial Crash around 2008. There is descent within the Senate by those who would rather back a more fiscally loose monetary policy that would be delivered by Brainard and that includes US Senator Warren. If Fed Chair Powell were to get the seat for a 2nd term the markets would have the continuity that they crave rather than worrying about a shift in monetary policy.
In addition, there was some good economic data as the US Existing Home Sales data showed that single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops sold for 6.34 million in October of 2021, the highest since January and beyond forecasts of 6.2 million.
The British pound dropped as the US dollar strengthened but this accelerated as rumors came out of Downing Street that the mood around the Cabinet and Boris Johnson was not all going well. Laura Kuenssberg took to her Twitter account to give voice to an unnamed source. Senior Downing St source says “there is a lot of concern inside the building about the PM...It’s just not working. The cabinet needs to wake up and demand serious changes otherwise it’ll keep getting worse. If they don’t insist, he just won’t do anything about it."
The USDJPY is riding high on several fronts. There is the obvious move into the US dollar, but also Oil hasn’t continued to drop lower so that is weighing on the yen. Retail traders who are heavily short of the USDJPY, they are being squeezed out of their positions. The rising USDJPY is also pushing higher as the US 10-year yields rise up nearly 4% today.
The EURUSD is also moving into the extremes on the ActivTrader sentiment indicator. The higher these numbers of bullish positions rise, the more likely the price is to fall as they squeeze the traders out of their position by targeting the swing lows and stop-loss orders.
The EURUSD is likely to drop out of the descending channel and show how the bears are accelerating the shorts positioning on the euro and longs on the US dollar. The momentum is accelerating to the downside, so price action is likely to follow. ECB’s Villeroy said “no doubt the inflation is temporary and mainly due to bottlenecks and that the ECB should remain patient. And that premature tightening would be a mistake.
The news stories out today were suggesting that there would be a release of oil from nations that had the spare capacity within their emergency stores. After the London close, the White House made a statement saying that there had been no decision made on the release of reserves. On the rumor of a consorted effort to release reserves OPEC+ said they may adjust plans which may have prompted the White House to calm the markets. With the ActivTrader sentiment indicator showing that 90% of traders on the platform are long the Brent contract, there is a real risk of a continuation to the downside.
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