The US dollar was mostly flat against its most-traded rivals with the exception of commodity currencies which got a boost from the surprise news from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The New Zealand dollar failed to join the rally of other commodity-related currencies, maintaining its weakness.
Dollar bulls were hoping to hear some hints from Federal Reserve members about timing of the next interest rate cut, but so far they were disappointed. In particular, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen failed to mention plans for monetary policy in her speech on Wednesday. Now, focus is shifting towards next week’s non-farm payrolls.
But the real kicker was the surprise agreement among the OPEC members to freeze oil production. For a long time, the OPEC and some other major producers were discussing a deal to limit or even reduce output of crude as a measure to buoy falling prices, but analysts were very skeptical about probability of such an agreement. Thus, they were surprised to hear that OPEC producers were able to reach some form of consensus, agreeing not just limit but actually reduce production, and that surprise translated into gains for commodities (especially crude oil, for the obvious reasons) and related currencies.
EUR/USD traded at about 1.1221 as of 23:13 GMT today, not far from the opening level of 1.1215. AUD/USD climbed from 0.7665 to 0.7693. NZD/USD maintained its weakness, falling from 0.7298 to 0.7280, though bouncing from the daily low of 0.7231.
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