The Federal Reserve expects sluggish U.S. inflation to rise over the next several months while the hot labor market gets yet hotter, one of the Fed’s most influential officials said on Thursday in comments that reinforce its gradual policy-tightening plan. His speech was seen as slightly dovish, which pushed the USDJPY sharply below 110.00. 

 What’s more, US PPI marked an unexpected decrease in July, the first one in nearly a year, suggesting that CPI is going to be contained. Headline PPI came in at -0.1% mom and 1.9% yoy against the consensuses at 0.1% mom and 2.2% yoy respectively. A surprising decline in terms of a monthly basis was the first one since August last year. Moreover, core PPI missed forecasts as well showing 0% mom and 1.8% yoy, whereas projections suggested a 0.2% rise in case of a monthly basis and a 2.1% increase as for a yearly basis.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand chose to leave interest rates unchanged at its yesterday’s meeting as it was widely anticipated. The NZD spiked following the decision but a move to the upside was fairly quickly wiped off. A rise could have stemmed from the fact the a rhetoric of the central bank in terms of the ex-change rate was not so dovish as the market consensus had expected. However, McDermott (RBNZ member) later added that the central bank feels uncomfortable with current exchange rate and that rates are going to be lower for longer. That finally pushed the NZDUSD below 0.7300. 

Bitcoin has surged lately amid wild volatility, however, a range of swings has subsided since then. Nonetheless, Bitcoin has yet to close a bullish gap which has been drawn recently, hence a likelihood of a pullback could be on the cards in the nearest future. We mentioned that scenario in our latest analysis concerning the cryptocurrency market.

While bitcoin’s bitter infighting and subsequent price rise has taken center stage, rival cryptocurrency ethereum has been quietly pushing higher in the background. On Wednesday, ethereum hit $314.75, the highest level in over a month since it reached $322.28 on June 29, according to CryptoCompare, a platform monitoring live prices of major cryptocurrencies. The price pulled back at a bit on Thursday to just above $301. But ethereum has been climbing steadily. Over the past two weeks, ethereum is up nearly 50 percent.

For all weaker performance of the UK’s industrial sector and the economy as a whole as well during summertime, industrial output rebounded quite noticeably which gave a rise to a temporary increase of the GBP. On the face of it, today’s figures were quite upbeat but the outlook deteriorates when we take a closer look at a whole quarter.