Investing.com -- The dollar kicked off the year in Europe with a mild recovery from its lowest level since July, with risk assets starting the year in favor after President Donald Trump confirmed he will sign a preliminary trade deal with China on Jan. 15.
Trump’s announcement removed much of the lingering uncertainty about the so-called ‘phase-1’ deal and also reinforced hopes that Trump’s need for re-election will keep an economically damaging trade war with China relatively contained over the coming months.
By 3:50 AM ET (0850 GMT), the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, was at 96.215, having traded as low as 96.02 over the new year. Despite the modest bounce, the dollar index has lost nearly 1% over the last week, chiefly against sterling and commodity currencies such as the Aussie and loonie. The euro was steady at $1.1210, having breached $1.1200 for the first time since August.
Overnight, the Chinese central bank again loosened its monetary stance with a further cut in its reserve requirement ratio. The move freed up over $110 billion in liquidity for the domestic banking system, which has struggled increasingly in recent months with an overhang of corporate debt.
The move, coming on the back of the news of the trade deal with the U.S., also propelled China’s stock index to its highest in nearly two years.
The day’s data calendar is dominated by the release of purchasing manager indexes by IHS Markit. The Chinese PMI fell to a three-month low earlier, but stayed comfortably in expansion territory, but the impact of that was softened by an encouraging bounce in industrial profits in November that was announced last week.
In Europe, meanwhile, the Spanish reading fell less than expected but Italy’s fell to 46.2, its lowest since April 2013. France’s and Germany's ticked up fractionally from the flash assessments to 50.4 and 43.7, respectively.
Later in the day, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its December policy meeting, while there will also be initial jobless claims data, as usual.
Markets are unlikely to return to full swing until Monday.