Forex News

The US dollar was strong for the most part of the week, boosted by policy meetings of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, though the currency weakened somewhat on Friday.

The Canadian dollar today dropped significantly against the US dollar as the risk-off sentiment in the markets drove the USD/CAD currency pair to new highs. The loonie’s slide against the greenback was further accelerated by the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump‘s administration against Canadian imports.

The Japanese yen traded lower against its major peers today after the Bank of Japan left monetary policy unchanged, preserving its unprecedented stimulus.

The New Zealand dollar fell today after a report showed that nation’s manufacturing expansion slowed, though remained at a high level. By now, the currency has trimmed its losses.

The euro today rallied slightly higher after Ewald Nowotny, an ECB governing council member, stated that the bank should capitalize on the opportunity to normalize its policies soonest possible. The EUR/USD currency pair had a muted reaction to the release of the final Eurozone CPI data early in the European session despite the print being in line with expectations.

The Great Britain pound was ending the Thursday’s trading session mixed. The sterling rose against some rivals, propelled higher by very good retail sales data, but fell versus others, dragged down by the market’s risk-negative sentiment that followed the dovish policy statement from the European Central Bank.

The Australian dollar was extremely soft against other most-traded currencies, with the notable exception of the euro, as the unexpectedly dovish policy statement of the European Central Bank as well as the threat of the US-China trade war put the market into the risk-off mode. Macroeconomic data in Australia and Australia’s biggest trading partner, China, hurt the Aussie as well.

The US dollar gained sharply on other currencies today after the European Central Bank made a surprisingly dovish policy statement. Yesterday, the currency had a mixed reaction to the hawkish statement from the Federal Reserve, rallying initially but falling afterwards. Yet Fed hawkishness is a bullish factor in the long and may be responsible to some degree for the currency’s rally today.

The euro dipped today following the European Central Bank policy meeting as the ECB signaled that it is not going to raise interest rates in 2018 — a message that markets did not like.

The Sterling pound today traded lower against the US dollar following the release of the UK Consumer Price Index report for May in the early European session. The GBP/USD currency pair later rallied higher from the mid-European session into the North American session as the US dollar weakened against the pound.