• The dollar turned broadly lower on Tuesday, moving in line with declining U.S. 10-year Treasury yields and retracing gains from Monday in light trading ahead of Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
With limited data this week and the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s November meeting and a speech from Fed Chair Janet Yellen expected in the next 24 hours, analysts said investors were seeking to even their books after dollar strength the previous session.
The euro edged up 0.1 percent to $1.1740. The single currency registered its biggest one-day fall since Oct. 26 on Monday but investors then looked beyond Germany’s political impasse to focus on the euro zone’s still-robust economy.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the prospect on Monday of a new election after talks on forming a three-way coalition collapsed.
The dollar fell 0.2 percent against the yen to 112.43 yen and the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, traded at 93.942 at 8:17 a.m. HK/SIN, falling from a previous high of 94.165.
• The Federal Reserve is “reasonably close” to its goals and should keep gradually raising U.S. interest rates to avoid the dual pitfalls of letting inflation drift below target for too long, and of driving unemployment down too far, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Tuesday.
A day after announcing her retirement from the central bank, planned for early February, Yellen said the Fed aims to avoid the “boom and bust” economy of the past. She added she does not believe that expectations for inflation - which has remained below a 2-percent target for five years - have drifted down “too much.”
• U.S. home sales increased more than expected in October as hurricane-related disruptions eased, but a chronic shortage of houses which is pushing prices beyond the reach of some first-time buyers remains an obstacle.
The National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday that existing home sales rose 2.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.48 million units last month. The NAR said sales in Houston and Jacksonville, regions which bore the brunt of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, had rebounded.
Sales in South Florida, however, remained weak last month.
The Realtors group said it expected activity in the areas affected by the storms to fully recover by the end of the year.
• Bank of England rate-setters spelled out their differences on Tuesday over the central bank’s first interest rate hike in a decade, as they focused on how to determine when low unemployment was about to push up inflation.
Four of the Monetary Policy Committee’s nine members spoke to lawmakers, nearly three weeks after the committee voted 7-2 to raise the main rate to 0.50 percent from 0.25 percent.
Many economists outside the BoE thought the decision was premature given Britain’s still-weak pay growth and uncertainties about Brexit which are weighing on the economy, despite robust global growth which has led the United States and the euro zone to start to tighten monetary policy.
• Robert Mugabe resigned as Zimbabwe’s president on Tuesday, a week after the army and his former political allies moved to end four decades of rule by a man once feted as an independence hero who became feared as a despot.
The 93-year-old Mugabe had clung on for a week after an army takeover, with ZANU-PF urging him to go. He finally resigned moments after parliament began an impeachment process seen as the only legal way to force him out.
• The Bank of Japan is dropping subtle, yet intentional, hints that it could edge away from crisis-mode stimulus earlier than expected, through a future hike in its yield target, according to people familiar with the central bank’s thinking.
With inflation still way below its 2 percent target, the BOJ sees no immediate need to withdraw stimulus, and regards weak price growth as its most pressing policy challenge.
• CME Group Inc, the world’s biggest futures exchange, said on Monday it still plans to launch a futures contract for bitcoin this year, but that a notice on its website stating the contract would begin trading on Dec. 11 was posted in error.
As bitcoin passed above the $8,000 level for the first time on Monday, cryptocurrency-related websites were abuzz with news of the CME notice that said the CME Bitcoin Futures contract would become effective on Dec. 10, a Sunday, for trading on Dec. 11, pending regulatory review.
• Oil rose on Tuesday, supported by expectations of an extension next week to OPEC output cuts, but prices remained under pressure from signs of higher output in the United States.
Brent crude oil LCOc1 was up 17 cents at $62.39 a barrel at 1452 GMT. U.S. light crude CLc1 was at $56.72, up 30 cents.
• Analysts said Brent was expected to fluctuate in a narrow range, from $61 to $63, as the market awaited the outcome of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ meeting on Nov. 30.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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