August trade has been apparent once again today, with the session following the trend of the past few weeks of particularly tight ranges. USD has been one of the most notable drivers, with strength being seen against the likes of EUR, JPY ahead of the all-important Fed’s Yellen speech, scheduled for Friday, seen as the main focal point of the week.
Elsewhere, commodity-linked currencies have seen strength through much of the session, before the DoE crude oil inventories saw a build (2501K vs. Exp. -455K), pushing the likes of USD/CAD off lowest levels.
The one outlier in regards to traction against the USD has been in GBP/USD, with the pair moving higher to continuing yesterday’s upside and touch 1.3250 for the first time since Aug 4th. Other notable moves have seen in the likes of USD/ZAR, with the ZAR softening in the wake of reports that the South African Finance Minister may be removed after being formally warned of impending charges.
Tomorrow’s notable highlights from Europe come in the form of the German IFO data, while out of the US, data including durable goods orders, services PMI and weekly jobless numbers are all due.