· · · The dollar languished close to one-month lows on Friday, seemingly pressured by year-end positioning with financial markets whipsawed by a collapse in oil prices, sell-off in equities and a threat of a U.S. government shutdown.
The safe-haven Japanese yen benefited from the brittle sentiment. The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies stood at 96.421 after falling to 96.168 overnight, its lowest since Nov. 20. The index has lost roughly 1 percent this week.
The dollar, which began the week above 113.00 yen, stood at 111.415. It had dropped 1 percent to 110.815 overnight, its weakest since Sept. 6.
The greenback has lost nearly 1.8 percent against its Japanese peer this week, the largest weekly decline since mid-February.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield was at 2.804 percent after sliding to 2.748 percent overnight, its lowest since early April.
The euro was 0.05 percent higher at $1.1449 after nudging up to a 1-1/2-month peak of $1.1486 the previous day. The single currency was headed for a 1.4 percent gain on the week.
The EUR/USD pair pulled back during the US session but managed to hold on top of 1.1400 and then bounced back above, surpassing 1.1450.
The overall short-term bias favors the upside and a test of 1.1500 is still on the cards. Before that level resistances are seen at 1.1465 and 1.1480. The positive tone is likely to remain intact as long as it holds above 1.1420. A break under 1.1385 (uptrend line) could open the doors to an extension of the correction.
· U.S. President Donald Trump will name Joseph Otting, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the White House said on Thursday.
The current FHFA director Melvin Watt, who will depart at the end of his term in early January, was under investigation for alleged sexual harassment of a subordinate in July.
Warehouses throughout the United States are at record capacity with Chinese imports of all kinds - microwaves, vacuum cleaner filters, swimwear, furniture - stacked to the ceiling, according to Magnus, who heads the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, whose members work with over 250,000 importers and exporters.
The buying binge is also evident in recent data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates, which show imports at major U.S. retail container ports surged 13.6 percent to a record 2.04million containers in October. This helped push the U.S. trade deficit with China to a record high.
· Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday added $5 billion to a government spending bill to help President Donald Trump make good on a pledge to build a border wall, a move that made a partial federal government shutdown more likely this weekend.
The Senate is highly unlikely to pass the legislation, which funds agencies responsible for federal law enforcement activities, airport security screenings, space exploration and farm programs, by a midnight deadline on Friday.
· President Donald Trump is planning to withdraw more than 5,000 of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a U.S. official said on Thursday, in the latest sign Trump’s patience is thinning with America’s longest war and overseas military interventions.
· The United States and three allies chastised China for economic espionage on Thursday, ratcheting up tensions as U.S. prosecutors indicted two Chinese nationals linked to a spy agency on charges of stealing confidential data from American government agencies and businesses around the world.
Prosecutors charged Zhu Hua and Zhang Jianguo in hacking attacks against the U.S. Navy, the space agency NASA and the Energy Department and dozens of companies. The operation targeted intellectual property and corporate secrets to give Chinese companies an unfair competitive advantage, they said.
· Japan’s annual core consumer inflation slowed in November, reinforcing market expectations the central bank will hold off on whittling down stimulus for a prolonged period as prices remain distant from its target.
The data drew attention to Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s warning on Thursday that rising economic risks will keep the central bank open to the idea of boosting - not trimming - stimulus.
The nationwide core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes the effect of volatile fresh food costs, rose 0.9 percent year-on-year in November, government data showed on Friday. That was below a 1.0percent gain in October and off market forecasts for a 1.0 percent increase.
· Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet approved on Friday a record $900 billion draft budget for the next fiscal year, boosted by spending to offset the impact of a planned sales tax hike, in a sign that fiscal reform is taking a backseat.
· Oil prices climbed on Friday after tumbling 5 percent in the previous session on signs OPEC's production cuts that start next month will be deeper than expected.
Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 futures were up 27 cents, or 0.5 percent, at $54.62 per barrel at 0448 GMT, after dropping $2.89 in the previous session, Reuters said. Brent is set to drop 9.4 percent for the week.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 rose 33 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $46.22 per barrel. WTI is set to decline about 9.5 percent for the week.
Reference: Reuters,CNBC
·
Thai
Eng