Here is what you need to know on Thursday, August 18:
The US Dollar Index (DXY) registered its highest daily close in three weeks on Wednesday and continued to edge higher during the Asian reading hours on Thursday. With the market mood remaining cautious, the dollar continues to outperform its rivals. In the European session, Eurostat will release the final version of the July inflation data, which is not expected to show any changes to the flash estimate of the annual HICP of 8.9%. In the second half of the day, July Existing Home Sales and the weekly Initial Jobless Claims data will be featured in the US economic docket.
Late Wednesday, the Federal Reserve's July policy meeting minutes revealed that all participants agreed that a 75-basis-point interest rate hike was appropriate. "Participants concurred that future rate hikes would depend on incoming information and judged that at some point it would be appropriate to slow the pace of increases," the publication further read and failed to trigger a noticeable market reaction.
During the Asian session, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Unemployment Rate edged lower to 3.4% in July. On a negative note, Employment Change arrived at -40.9K, missing the market expectation for an increase of 25K by a wide margin. Following Wednesday's steep decline, AUD/USD stays under bearish pressure and continues to push lower toward 0.6900.
EUR/USD fluctuates in a relatively tight range above 1.0150 after having closed the previous day virtually unchanged. Earlier in the day, European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Isabel Schnabel said that a technical recession in the euro area was possible.
GBP/USD came under renewed bearish pressure in the early European session on Thursday and started to decline toward 1.2000.
USD/JPY capitalized on rising US Treasury bond yield and climbed above 135.00. At the time of press, the pair was up 0.2% on the day at 135.30.
With the 10-year US Treasury bond yield rising more than 3% on Wednesday, gold closed the third straight day in negative territory and was last seen moving sideways at around $1,760.
Bitcoin lost more than 2% before going into a consolidation phase below $23,500. Ethereum registered losses for the fourth straight day on Wednesday and was last seen consolidating its latest decline near $1,850.
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