• MTS Economic News_20180723

    23 Jul 2018 | Economic News


·         The dollar slumped against major peers on Monday, knocked lower by U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments on the greenback’s strength while the yen spiked on reports Japan’s central bank is debating moves to reduce its massive monetary stimulus.

The dollar index, a measure of its value against a basket of six major currencies, was down 0.1 percent at 94.327 on Monday, slipping further from a one-year high of 95.656 touched on July 19.

Against the yen, the dollar fell to two-week lows of 110.75 yen, having lost more than two percent from its six-month peak of 113.18 hit less than a week ago.

It was last off about 0.5 percent at 110.95 yen.

Against the euro, the dollar slipped 0.2 percent to $1.1742 per euro.

“At the moment, we don’t know what kind of pressure or comments could come from the U.S. side,” said Osamu Takashima, head of G10 FX strategy, Japan at Citigroup Global Markets Japan.

“At the same time, U.S. yields look like they are bottoming out. The reason why President Trump is becoming very nervous on the U.S. dollar is because the Fed, led by Chair (Jerome) Powell, is continuing policy firming. Under such circumstances, the fundamentals look rather positive for the U.S. dollar overall,” he

·         U.S. President Donald Trump threatened his Iranian counterpart in a late Sunday evening Twitter post:

The tweet from the president follows Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cautioning the American leader on Sunday about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying: "War with Iran is the mother of all wars."

The tweet from the president follows Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cautioning the American leader on Sunday about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying: "War with Iran is the mother of all wars."

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a rhetorical assault on Iran’s leaders on Sunday, comparing them to a “mafia” and promising unspecified backing for Iranians unhappy with their government.

Pompeo, in a California speech to a largely Iranian-American audience, dismissed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who negotiated a nuclear deal with the United States and five other countries, as “merely polished front men for the ayatollahs’ international con artistry.”

·         The ongoing Washington and Beijing trade war, could push automobile companies to produce more in China, the CEO and founder of Shanghai-based consultancy Automobility told CNBC on Thursday.

Tesla has raised prices on its automobiles in the China market in response to the tit-for-tat American and Chinese tariffs.

Beijing imposed a 25 percent additional tariff on imported American cars in response to U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, including the automotive sector.

Russo added that tariffs will negatively affect the automobile industry and several brands that import to China may have to reconsider where the "footprint of your (their) production should be" in order to be cost effective.

The relocation of production to China could come at a cost of fewer jobs available for Americans in the automotive industry, Russo said.

·         The top U.S. military commander on the Korean peninsula said Saturday that the material needed for North Korea to make nuclear bombs is still intact, even after an historic summit in Singapore aimed at denuclearizing Pyongyang.

North Korea's nuclear "production capability is still intact," Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, the commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, told the Aspen Security Forum via teleconference. “We haven't seen a complete shutdown of production yet. We have not seen a removal of fuel rods."

·         A top Chinese securities regulator said on Monday that trading in stock index futures will soon be “back to normal,” two sources said, suggesting the government is about to lift the draconian restrictions on such derivatives it imposed during China’s 2015 market crash.

Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), made the remarks during an internal training meeting with futures brokerage executives, the sources, who have direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters.

·         Threats and intimidation on trade will never work on China, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was ready to impose tariffs on all $500 billion of imported goods from the country.

China also has no need to use competitive devaluation of its currency to aid its exports, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, told a daily news briefing.

·         Oil prices stabilised on Monday as worries over production losses were outweighed by concerns that trade disputes would reduce economic growth and hit global energy demand.

Benchmark Brent crude oil LCOcwas up 15 cents at $73.22 a barrel by 0750 GMT. U.S. light crude CLcwas unchanged at $68.26.

·         The oil market is likely to become progressively more unpredictable over the coming months, analysts have told CNBC, in the latest sign dynamics shaping crude futures have dramatically shifted since the crude rally began.

International benchmark Brent crude has tumbled nearly 9 percent from last week’s high of more than $79 a barrel. It’s most recent dip comes amid emerging evidence of higher crude production from OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and other members of the Middle East-dominated cartel — as well as Russia and the U.S.

“Political and economic events are shaping the oil market in a way that they have not shaped for quite some time,” Tamas Varga, senior analyst at PVM Oil Associates, said in a research note published Thursday.

“The amount of uncertainties surrounding the global supply (and) demand balance is growing almost by the day,” he added.


Reference: Reuters, CNBC

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