USD has traded in the green throughout the day amid relatively light newsflow, after drifting lower on Tuesday and Wednesday. This comes after a host of actions from Chinese authorities saw the Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng reverse yesterday’s trend to end the session in positive territory, with the Shanghai Composite positing its largest one-day gain since 2009. As a consequence, there was an unwind in safe haven bids in JPY, thereby bolstering USD/JPY to see the pair break back above 121.00 to the upside, which filtered through to USD strength.
Elsewhere, the boost in sentiment from positive Chinese equities led to strength in commodities, with CAD and NOK both seeing strength as a knock on effect of this. CAD strength also comes ahead of the BoC rate decision expected next week, with the majority of surveyed analysts forecasting the central bank to keep rates on hold.
The EUR today saw a retracement of yesterday’s gains amid light newsflow. This comes as the Greek saga has been put on hold until the weekend, where a Eurogroup meeting and an EU leaders summit are scheduled to take place; however, of note, Greece has been given a deadline of midnight tonight to put forward a written proposal to their creditors.
Looking ahead, tomorrow sees French industrial and manufacturing production, UK trade balance, Canadian unemployment rate and comments from ECB’s Constancio and Coeure, as well as Fed’s Rosengren and Yellen.