All the elements are in place for this to be a lively and volatile month-end, but equity market performance may well be the overriding factor driving currency movements. The massive losses yesterday have only compounded the sense of risk aversion in the market, and as such we’ve seen a concerted sell-off in commodity currencies, EUR and GBP – coinciding with increased demand for USD, JPY and to…

The heavy slump in Asian equity markets overnight has transmitted into an ugly start for European indices as well, so unsurprisingly the currency markets have reacted by punishing risk-correlated EUR and commodity currencies whilst fleeing to the relative safe havens of the USD, JPY and CHF. The economic calendar between here and Friday is hardly scintillating, and with one eye on the holiday…

The markets have taken a little bit of time warming to the results of the latest G20 meeting in Toronto; but from our perspective the developments should be broadly positive for risk appetite. The striking feature about the communiqué this time around was that leaders actually managed to come to concrete and specific targets rather than the vague non-committal fare that had made the previous…

The recent equity market losses make for gloomy analysis, and coupled with renewed fears over US growth prospects, US Treasury yields have found themselves under immense pressure in the past week.   For the currency trader, the decline in risk appetite should broadly favour the USD, but the drop in yields is something to keep an eye on in terms of USDJPY in particular. Historically there…

As anticipated, the FOMC meeting last night was largely uninspiring; with the Fed statement taking on an expectedly dovish tone that included all the standard rhetoric about low rates continuing “for an extended period”. Some of the sharper dissection of the release noted a slightly more downbeat perspective on the US housing market – and rightly so considering the shocker of a new home sales…