What you need to take care of on Friday, August 26:
The greenback ended Thursday mixed across the FX board, although there were no significant changes among major pairs. Investors are mildly optimistic as macroeconomic figures were upbeat but cautious ahead of central banks' governors, set to speak within the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.
Germany reported that the Q2 Gross Domestic Product rose by 1.7% YoY, better than the 1.4% previously estimated. In the quarter, it was up by 0.1%, revised from 0% previously. Also, the August IFO survey showed the Business Climate reached 88.5, better than the 86.8 expected. Expectations and the assessment of the current situation were better than anticipated.
The European Central Bank released the minutes of its latest meeting, which showed that a "very large number" of Governing Council members agreed that it was appropriate to raise key rates by 50 basis points while also noting that members agreed that it was "appropriate to take further steps on the path of monetary policy normalisation."
The US published the second estimate of the Q2 GDP, which was upwardly revised from -0.9% to -0.6%. Additionally, Initial Jobless Claims for the week ended August 19 declined to 243K, beating the market expectations.
The EUR/USD pair briefly traded above parity but could not retain gains and stabilised around 0.9970, unchanged for a third consecutive day. GBP/USD holds above the 1.1800 figure. The USD/CAD pair is at around 1.2920, while the Australian dollar was the best performer vs the greenback, now trading at around 0.6980.
Spot gold is up for a third consecutive day and currently trades at around $1,757 a troy ounce. Crude oil prices, on the other hand, gave back some ground, and WTI stands at $93.10 a barrel.
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Another sign of the good health of the US economy came in response to firm flash US Manufacturing and Services PMIs, which in turn reinforced further the already strong performance of the US Dollar, relegating EUR/USD to the 1.0400 neighbourhood on Friday.
GBP/USD remains depressed near 1.2520 on stronger Dollar
Poor results from the UK docket kept the British pound on the back foot on Thursday, hovering around the low-1.2500s in a context of generalized weakness in the risk-linked galaxy vs. another outstanding day in the Greenback.
Gold keeps the bid bias unchanged near $2,700
Persistent safe haven demand continues to prop up the march north in Gold prices so far on Friday, hitting new two-week tops past the key $2,700 mark per troy ounce despite extra strength in the Greenback and mixed US yields.
Geopolitics back on the radar
Rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine caused renewed unease in the markets this week. Putin signed an amendment to Russian nuclear doctrine, which allows Russia to use nuclear weapons for retaliating against strikes carried out with conventional weapons.
Eurozone PMI sounds the alarm about growth once more
The composite PMI dropped from 50 to 48.1, once more stressing growth concerns for the eurozone. Hard data has actually come in better than expected recently – so ahead of the December meeting, the ECB has to figure out whether this is the PMI crying wolf or whether it should take this signal seriously. We think it’s the latter.
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