This week was one of the best for the Australian dollar over the course of the past months as it was by far the best performing currency in G10 space. There were two important factors standing behind this scenario. Firstly, the remarkably weak performance of the US dollar which was the worst currency this week. Secondly, iron ore prices managed to retain its upward momentum.
First of all, the most crucial data scheduled for today from the US economy proved to fall short of forecasts all but across the board. Retail sales, CPI as well as consumer confidence gauged by the University of Michigan were decisively lackluster. It could be especially crucial for the greenback given recent words of Chairwoman Yellen who pointed out that the Fed was going to be data driven when it comes to next moves with a special focus on inflation.
The sole upbeat story could be noticed in industrial production which marginally beat estimations. On that account, it might be treated as the brightest spot when it comes to the US data. The figure remained sturdy, and what’s more the manufacturing ISM suggests even higher figures going forward. Nonetheless, it wasn’t enough to stop USD bears, and one of the largest move emerged on the AUDUSD which managed to break a critical resistance zone.
The global cryptocurrency market has decreased of late, however it appears that Litecoin could be the most valuable digital currency, at least according to Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, who thinks that his virtual currency could exceed Ethereum’s price. Moreover, it’s worth mentioning that there is a tremendous risk for BTC which could emerge after July 31st when a deadline for moving to the new system is set. We’ll write more about it on Monday.
While oil prices were able to make some profit this week, the longer-term outlook does not look so good. We got three noteworthy fundamental reports which could sown a grain of anxiousness in terms of further compliance of the deal between OPEC and non-OPEC countries. Moreover, an oil rigs count picked up by 2 to 765 which adds to downward pressure on the commodity going forward.
Besides, we would like to present you the two noteworthy banks’ recommendations on AUDUSD and USDJPY.