April: Endgame

Forex 3 minutes to read

Michael O’Neill

FX Trader, Loonieviews.net

Summary: Avengers: Endgame had a strong opening weekend, and the US dollar is having a strong April close. The greenback soared during the month, led by a 2.36% rally against the Swiss franc.

That move was fuelled by EURCHF demand and a dovish Swiss National Bank saying it would continue to delay monetary policy normalisation. NZDUSD fell 2.01% during the period. EURUSD was the best performing currency. It was unchanged compared to its March 29 New York closing level.

Change in US dollar vs G-10 major currencies March 29-April 30, (14:00 GMT):

Month-end portfolio rebalancing flows have taken a toll on the US dollar since New York opened. GBPUSD has risen 0.78% gains while the single currency climbed 0.33%.(as of 13:45 GMT). The selling pressures were exacerbated by weaker than expected US economic data. Chicago PMI at 52.6 was below the 59.0 forecast. Other US data reports were as expected. The Q1 Employment Cost Index (ECI) rose 0.7 which unchanged from the previous reading. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose 3.0%, close to the 3.2% forecast and the results likely suffered from February’s weather problems.

USDCAD sellers were evident in early New York trading with the currency pair undermined by broad US dollar selling. Buyers emerged after Canadian economic data was weaker than expected. GDP shrank 0.1% in February. (forecast 0.0%.) The Raw Materials Price index was also soft, and USDCAD rallied on the news. However, the GDP data miss should be discounted due to lousy weather during the month.

Wall Street traders were not very impressed with Alphabet’s (GOOG: Nasdaq) results and today’s US economic reports didn’t help. The three major indices are trading lower compared to yesterday’s close but are still likely to finish the month with solid gains.

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