MTS Help Center

• The dollar gained versus the euro and sterling on Friday as the U.S. Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady but reaffirmed its monetary tightening stance, setting the stage for a rate hike in December.

In foreign exchange markets, investor focus is now shifting back to the divergence between the monetary policies of the United States and other major economies, such as Japan where interest rates are seen staying extremely low. The yen, as a result, remains near a five-week low against the dollar.

The dollar index .DXY, a gauge of its performance against six major peers, traded at a fresh one-week high at 96.75.

According to the CME group’s FedWatch tool, the likelihood of the Fed raising rates by another 25 basis points in December is 75 percent.

Analysts are also expecting more rate hikes by the Fed next year.

“We anticipate two more hikes in 2019: one in March and one in June,” Kevin Logan, chief U.S. economist at HSBC, said in a note.

Meanwhile, the euro EUR= traded at $1.1342 on Friday, losing 0.18 percent versus the greenback. The single currency fell 0.54 percent on Thursday as traders reacted to negative news out of Europe.

• The Euro downtrend against the US Dollar looks to have been re-energized after a brief corrective upswing. Prices have broken the counter-trend support line guiding the move higher from the October 31 low, marking a step toward resumption of its long-term decline.

Turning to the daily chart, prices now look poised to revisit support in the 1.1268.-1301 area, which has bedeviled sellers since mid-August. A break below it confirmed on a daily closing basis opens the door for a challenge of the 1.1110-19 zone.

Near-term resistance is at 1.1432, marked by the October 9 low as well as a falling trend line. A reversal above that – with a daily close serving as confirmation of a breach yet gain – paves the way for another test of the 1.1543-54 inflection band.

• Europe's growth prospects are at risk from a more turbulent external environment with trade tensions and tighter financial conditions at the forefront of global headwinds, according to the latest regional outlook from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Downgrading its growth forecasts for Europe for 2018 and 2019, the IMF said Thursday that the "the external environment has become less supportive and is expected to soften further in 2019 owing to slowing global demand, trade tensions and higher energy prices."

Accordingly, growth is projected to moderate from 2.8 percent in 2017 to 2.3 percent in 2018 and 1.9 percent in 2019, the IMF noted.

• The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Thursday that Russia wants to lift banking restrictions on North Korea put in place to try to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear program, but the United States would not let that happen

• China’s factory-gate inflation slowed for the fourth month in October on cooling domestic demand and manufacturing activity, signaling Beijing would likely roll out more growth-boosting measures in the face of trade frictions with the United States.

The producer price index (PPI), a measure of the prices businesses receive for their goods and services, rose 3.3 percent in October from a year earlier, easing from 3.6 percent in September, the statistics bureau said.

• Oil stabilized on Friday after spending most of the week sliding, but markets remained weak as rising supply and concerns of an economic slowdown pressured prices, with U.S. crude down by around 20 percent since early October.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $65.61 per barrel at 0741 GMT, 6 cents below their last settlement. WTI is set for a fifth weekly fall, down 4 percent so far this week.

Front-month Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were at $70.74 a barrel, 9 cents above their last close. Still, Brent is poised for an almost 3 percent drop for the week, its fifth straight week of decline.

Reference: Reuters, CNBC,DailyFX