At its meeting today, the Reserve Bank of Australia Board decided to maintain its current policy settings. This includes targets for the cash rate and the yield on 3-year Australian Government bonds of 25 basis points.
The AUDUSD has remained relatively flat on the news. The Aussie dollar was unable to sustain a move above the 0.715 level in late London session trading. As of 10 a.m. EST the pair is trading around the 0.7131 range, up 0.10% on the day.
Over the past several days Bitcoin (BTC) has been climbing steadily upward. The cryptocurrency heavyweight hit a 2020 high of $12,134.29 (according to Coinbase) very early morning eastern time on August 2. Back on July 27 Bitcoin firmly broke out of the $8,810 to $10,020 channel it had been holding since early June.
Almost immediately after hitting the new 2020 high around midnight EST, Bitcoin took a massive nosedive. In just 15 minutes it plummeted -8.05% down to the October 2019 high on 5.2k BTC volume. More than 9.1k BTC were traded in the hourlong run up and drawdown. This is very heavy volume. Average volume in the preceding and subsequent hours saw roughly 1k volume per hour on Coinbase.
In the hours that followed, it briefly clawed its way back above the $11,400 mark before sinking again. Within the last hour Bitcoin has bounced off the September 2019 high level twice, on the 15-minute chart.
As of this writing Bitcoin is trading at $11,060. Based on the order book positions and trend indicators, we anticipate a fall back toward the $10,500 range in the short term. We’re also looking for a return to the $9,500 to $10,200 range in the near future.
Markets are bracing for what could be record poor US GDP numbers. Consensus is contraction in the range of 30%, however the NY Fed model shows positive growth on a QoQ basis. Here are the number releases you should watch for in the coming hour.
In its most recent release on monetary policy, the Federal Reserve committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy. It acknowledged the economic challenges being faced. And emphasized goals of promoting maximum employment and price stability.
They reiterated that coronavirus outbreak continues to cause enormous human and economic difficulty across the United States and around the world. The release highlights that although economic activity and employment have picked up somewhat in recent months, they are still well below levels seen at the beginning of the year.
Weaker overall demand and dramatically lower oil prices are working to hold down consumer price inflation. The Fed states that financial conditions have generally improved over the last couple of months. This improvement is due in part to the policy measures taken to support the economy, including the flow of credit to U.S. households and businesses.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System voted unanimously to:
Read the full Federal Reserve decision press release (PDF).
Researching forex trading? Below are some interesting forex statistics, charts, trends, and facts we found on this $5.3 trillion daily market.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people operating under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate without a central bank or authority. It manages transactions, and issuance of new bitcoins, collectively through the network. Bitcoin is an open-source cryptocurrency. Its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part.
The price of bitcoin is up sharply today on a weaker US dollar. At the time of writing, BTC is up more than 9%. And it’s currently trading just below $10,900.
Despite the recent rise, today’s top of $10,968 is still 21% off 2019’s high price. It is also almost 45% below the record high of nearly $20,000 set back in 2017. This is the biggest single-day price move since early May. It also breaks the largely range-bound moves since early June 2020. The current price is now firmly above the 50 EMA.
It is unclear if the fall of the USD is the sole impetus for bitcoin’s rise. However, the timing isn’t a coincidence. The dollar is showing additional signs of weakness. And the US economy is bracing for additional hits due to the coronavirus. Which means BTC may have more room to rise. It’s unlikely that bitcoin reaches the tantalizing $20,000 mark this year.
Gold prices, alongside other precious metals like silver and platinum, are in the midst of their best week since March 23. That was the week that the Federal Reserve announced its extraordinary monetary intervention into financial markets in order to stave off a cataclysmic collapse stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Gold prices are up over +4% on the week, and within 2% of the all-time high price of 1920.94 set back in 2011.
Several points of confluence are working to push gold prices upward. The recent €750 billion bailout package passed by the European Union helped to strengthen the euro against the US dollar. As coronavirus cases in the United States have dramatically spiked the US dollar has lost much of its safe haven appeal. COVID-19 cases have increased by more than a million in just 15 days. By comparison, cases throughout the most of the developed world have continued to flatten or fall.
In recent weeks the dollar index (DXY) has been softening significantly. If we overlay the DXY on the gold price chart, we can see moves between the two tend to be inversely correlated. When Gold hit the all-time high in 2011 the dollar index dropped under 73.00. We’re already seeing similar patterns in the charts. With the DXY pointing downward, there is a possibility that Gold breaches the 2011 level. Beyond that it will likely attack the 2,000 area.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that the GOP supported another round of stimulus checks “to help American families keep driving our national comeback.” This may provide some near term economic support. However we anticipate that increasing coronavirus cases in the United States will cause more job losses and will push the US economy further into recession. We also anticipate that the recovery will be L shaped. Further weakening the dollar and pushing Gold prices upward into the second half of the year.
The EURUSD pair is trading above the 2019 high with the 50 EMA continuing to separate from the 100 SMA. On the daily chart the 50 EMA has just pushed up through the Pivot point at 1.1251 and is pointing toward higher gains. The current price is above the 15 period R2 level.
The 2019 high and R2 are almost directly in line, less than 4 pips appart, which may add an additional level of support if the price begins to retrace.
The US dollar continues to experience weakness, which is also propelling the euro higher. We anticipate that the EURUSD pair will push toward the 1.22 level, a major supportive level in 2018, by the end of the year.
The US dollar has been weakening significantly over the past couple weeks. Today the DXY has fallen as far as 94.83 before recovering slightly. Currently hovering right around the 95.00 level, the greenback is below the 2019 low set in early January of 2019.
The US dollar has recently lost its luster as a safe haven as cases of the coronavirus soar across the US, while europe and other parts of the world appear to have solved the crisis. A close today below the 95 level could signal a bigger move to the downside in the near term.