· The dollar held firm on Tuesday against a basket of currencies as a report that John Taylor has support from a group of Republican Senators to be Federal Reserve chief offset news that might hamper the passage of a tax-cut plan.
· Taylor, a Stanford University economist, is seen as someone who may put the Fed on a faster path of interest rate increases. He favors a rule-based approach to setting rates.
“The assumption is that he’s a hawk and because of his ‘Taylor Rule’,” said Paresh Upadhyaya, director of currency strategy at Amundi Pioneer Investment Management in Boston.
In addition to Taylor, Trump’s candidates for Fed chief include current Fed Chair Janet Yellen, whose term expires in February, as well as Fed Governor Jerome Powell, Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
· Optimism for a tax overhaul slipped following a CNBC report citing an aide of Senate leader Mitch McConnell that three GOP Senators may not back the Republican tax bill.
The gauge that tracks the dollar against a group of six currencies was flat at 93.934, recovering from an earlier low of 93.682.
The greenback hovered near a three-month high versus the yen, gaining 0.4 percent at 113.90 yen.
It held below a three-month peak of 114.09 in reaction to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling party win on Sunday.
· The euro edged up 0.1 percent to $1.1761 and rose 0.5 percent to 133.96 yen before Thursday’s European Central Bank policy meeting.
· House Republicans aim to introduce their tax bill on Nov. 1, a Capitol Hill source tells CNBC.
The plan's release will follow an expected House vote on the Senate-approved budget plan on Thursday. The Senate resolution unlocks a tool that would allow the tax bill to pass with only a simple majority of Republican votes in the Senate.
The GOP wants to approve a plan by the end of the year to dramatically lower individual and corporate tax rates, double the standard deduction and scrap certain taxes that largely affect wealthier Americans. The party released a framework of its proposal last month, but it lacked some details Republicans aimed to hash out before releasing a draft bill.
· A senior Republican senator called President Donald Trump “utterly untruthful” on Tuesday in an exchange of insults on Twitter hours before the president was to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to build consensus for tax reform.
“Bob Corker, who ... couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee, is now fighting Tax Cuts,” Trump, set to attend Senate Republicans’ weekly lunch, wrote on Twitter.
· China’s ruling Communist Party reveals its new leadership line-up on Wednesday when President Xi Jinping introduces his Politburo Standing Committee, culminating a week-long party congress.
The new line-up will be announced around midday at the first plenum of the congress. The congress itself formally ended on Tuesday, with Xi having his political theory written into the party’s constitution, putting him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong
· Brent crude, the global benchmark, settled up 96 cents or 1.7 percent to $58.33 a barrel. U.S. crude settled up 57 cents or 1.1 percent to$52.47.
Brent oil rose 1 percent on Tuesday after top exporter Saudi Arabia said it was determined to end a supply glut, while prices also drew support from forecasts of a further drop in U.S. crude inventories as well as nervousness over tensions in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Saudi energy minister said the focus remained on reducing oil stocks in industrialized countries to their five-year average and raised the prospect of prolonged output restraint once an OPEC-led supply-cutting pact ends.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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