Day: August 22, 2018

August 22
2018

Chinese Yuan Seeks Direction After Trump’s Currency Manipulator Comments

The Chinese yuan is seeking direction after President Donald Trump accused the world’s second-largest economy of being a currency manipulator. This prompted officials to deny the allegation, pointing out that the yuan’s exchange rate is determined by the market, not Beijing. But Trump has made these suggestions before, despite the yuan appreciating for several years prior to its recent plunge. Speaking in an interview with Reuters, the president accused China […]

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August 22
2018

Sterling Rallies Higher on Renewed Brexit Talks and Weak Dollar

The Sterling pound today rallied higher against the US dollar following yesterday’s announcement by the chief Brexit negotiators to speed up the pace of negotiations. The GBP/USD currency pair was also boosted by the selling pressure around the US dollar following the political developments in two Federal investigations involving President Donald Trump‘s associates. The GBP/USD currency pair today rallied from a low of 1.2868 to a high of 1.2931 and was in a downtrend at the time of writing. The currency […]

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August 22
2018

Positive Macroeconomic Data Doesn’t Help Aussie to Rally

Macroeconomic data released in Australia over the trading session was good. But unlike its New Zealand counterpart, the Australian dollar was unable to rally against any of its rivals, though managed to pare losses against some of them. The six month annualised growth rate in the Westpac–Melbourne Institute Leading Index rose from –0.06% in June to +0.55% in July. Construction work done rose 1.6% in the June quarter from the previous […]

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August 22
2018

New Zealand Dollar Mixed After Retail Sales Beat Expectations

The New Zealand dollar was mixed today, rising against some of its rivals and falling versus others, following the release of retail sales data that beat analysts’ expectations. Statistics New Zealand reported that retail sales rose 1.1% in the June quarter from the previous three months. That is compared to the forecast increase of 0.4% and the 0.3% gain registered in the previous quarter. Core retail sales increased 1.4% versus […]

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August 22
2018

EUR/USD Extends Rally on US Politics, FOMC Minutes

EUR/USD extended this week’s rally on Wednesday. While US politics played the major part in the rally, minutes of the latest policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee also contributed to the rally. Existing home sales fell to the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.34 million in July from 5.38 million in June. Analysts were wrong with their promises of an increase to 5.40 million. (Event A on the chart.) US crude oil inventories dropped […]

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