It was a relatively quiet day on the Asian economic calendar this morning. The British Pound and the Aussie Dollar were in action early on. Key stats included the UK’s BRC Retail Sales Monitor figures for January and January business confidence numbers out of Australia.Outside of the numbers, news of the corona-virus death toll hitting 1,011 on Monday left the markets wary.
China returning to work after the extended break provided some support to riskier assets early on, however.
The focus on the day will be on FED Chair Powell’s first day of testimony to Congress. Economic data out of the U.S has supported the Dollar of late. It will be interesting to see whether the FED Chair expects any material fallout from the corona-virus. There’s also inflation to consider. At the time of writing, the Dollar Spot Index was up by 0.02% to 98.855.
The Aussie Dollar moved from $0.66856 to $0.66916 upon release of the stats. At the time of writing, the Aussie Dollar was up by 0.24% to $0.6704.
At the time of writing, the Japanese Yen was down by 0.06% to ¥109.89 against the U.S Dollar, while the Kiwi Dollar was up by 0.05% to $0.6387.
On the monetary policy front, ECB President Lagarde is due to speak later today. Expect any dovish chatter to add further pressure on the EUR. At the time of writing, the EUR was up by 0.03% to $1.0914.
At the time of writing, the Pound was up by 0.04% to $1.2917, the upside coming in spite of the soft retail sales figures.
Loonie back at C$1.33 levels against the Greenback, there could be some near-term support should OPEC and Russia agree to a material cutback in production. The Loonie was up by 0.05% at C$1.3310 against the U.S Dollar, at the time of writing.
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