Forex news for US trading on April 20, 2017

  • Mnuchin offers some hints about what's coming in tax reform plan
  • April 2017 US Philly Fed business outlook index 22.0 vs 25.0 exp
  • Initial jobless claims 244K vs 240K expected
  • Kuroda: Current pace of purchases to continue for some time
  • March 2017 US leading index 0.4% vs 0.2% exp m/m
  • April 2017 Eurozone consumer confidence flash -3.6 vs -4.8 exp
  • Cohn: The President doesn't like the trade deficit
  • Ahmadinejad loses bid to run for Iran's Presidency
  • Commerce Secretary Ross. Defense spending will require more steel production
  • Trudeau: The US has a $400m dairy trade surplus with Canada
  • Merkel still ahead in German polls
  • IMF's Lagarde is finally seeing the global economy picking up momentum
  • Ontario announces 16 new measures to curb Toronto-area housing prices
  • Fed's Powell: Financial regulation is excessively complex

Markets:

  • Gold up $1 to $1281
  • WTI crude down 17-cents to $50.27
  • S&P 500 up 18 points to 2356
  • US 10-year yields up 2 bps to 2.23%
  • AUD leads, JPY lags

It was a roundtrip for the euro. Polls showing some momentum for Macron helped EUR/USD up to 1.0777 in early European trade but it later made a double-top there and the US dollar caught a bid on more talk of tax cuts from the White House. The top led to selling all the way down to 1.0717, which was nearly flat on the day.

USD/JPY caught a big bid right at 9 am in New York as it jumped to 109.40 from 109.00. It was either a run on stops with a few big levels in between or it was an early leak of the Kuroda comments. The move faded in 30 minutes but fresh highs came when the Kuroda comments hit. The pair made two more highs after that over the next four hours but only by a couple pips each time and is now consolidating around 109.30.

Cable inched over the early European high of 1.2842 but could push further and slipped back to 1.2817. But it's impressively holding nearly all the gains from the bust higher on the election call and that looks like a consolidation before another push.

USD/CAD touched 1.3500 but was quickly beaten back from the big figure down to 1.3460. The rumours about Canadian housing were proven true as Ontario introduced measures to cool the Toronto market. Flat oil trading generally kept a lid on the trade.

AUD/USD hit a fresh high of 0.7547 just ahead of the London close but was dragged back to 0.7525 on the dollar bid on the tax comments.