•The dollar fell against the yen and euro in thin year-end trading on Monday as optimism about progress in the U.S.-China trade dispute hurt its safe-haven allure, but the greenback stayed on track to log its strongest annual performance in three years.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 96.173 after seeing an earlier high of 96.322.
The Japanese yen was at 109.61 against the dollar after touching lows above 110.4 on Monday. The Australian dollar traded at $0.7046.
• Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to vote on Thursday on a funding package to end the 10-day-old partial U.S. government shutdown, without providing the $5 billion President Donald Trump has demanded
The planned vote sets up a Democratic showdown with Trump’s fellow Republicans on an issue dear to the president on the first day of divided government in Washington since he took office in January 2017 with a Congress led by his own party.
Democrats formally take control of the House from the Republicans after winning a majority of seats in November’s congressional elections.
The two-part Democratic package filed on Monday in the House includes a bill to keep funding for the Department of Homeland Security at current levels through Feb. 8 with no new wall funding, as well as a bundle of six measures worth nearly $265 billion combined that would fund the other shuttered agencies through the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year.
• President Donald Trump on Tuesday invited Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to a border security briefing at the White House as the federal government remained partially shut down over his demand to fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The president’s invitation, which was described by congressional sources as a briefing and not a negotiating session, was sent to the top two Democrats and Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
• President Donald Trump said this weekend he had a “very good call” with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade. The president also claimed that “big progress” was being made on this front. Trump’s statements sparked gains in markets worldwide.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump may be overstating how much progress was being made. The report cited people familiar with the situation. China and the U.S. agreed earlier this month to a 90-day grace period to try and work out their differences on trade.
• South Korean exports fell slightly in December from a year earlier, official data showed on Tuesday, missing even the most pessimistic forecast from a Reuters survey and providing fresh evidence of a cooling global economy.
Economists said the data was hardly surprising as the tariff war between the United States and China clouds the outlook for global trade and as U.S. economic growth moderates.
South Korea’s trade ministry said exports in December fell 1.2 percent from the same month in 2017, hit by falling memory-chip and oil prices and cooling demand from China. Imports grew just 0.9 percent.
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday he is ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump again anytime to achieve their common goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but warned he may have to take an alternative path if U.S. sanctions and pressure against the country continued.
It was not clear what Kim meant by “a new path,” but his comments are likely to further fuel scepticism over whether North Korea intends to give up a nuclear weapons program that it has long considered essential to its security.
• U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States would continue to cooperate with Israel over Syria and in countering Iran in the Middle East, even as President Donald Trump plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
Trump announced last month that he planned to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, declaring that they had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State and were no longer needed in the country.
In making the announcement, Trump ignored the advice of top national security aides and did so without consulting lawmakers or U.S. allies participating in anti-Islamic State operations. The decision prompted Jim Mattis to resign as defense secretary.
• British Prime Minister Theresa May urged lawmakers on Monday to back her Brexit deal, promising that it would allow the country to “turn a corner” and let the government focus on solving domestic problems such as housing and a skill shortage.
The vote on May’s Brexit deal with the EU is scheduled to take place in the week beginning Jan. 14.
• Large financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N), and American Express Co (AXP.N) are cutting back or altering some of the rewards plans that their credit card businesses offer borrowers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The financial institutions don’t plan to end rewards entirely, but want to alter them in ways that boost credit card usage and reduce upfront rewards bonuses, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
• Oil prices ticked were higher on Friday after a week of volatile trading, but shed early gains on profit-taking ahead of the New Year holiday as global crude benchmarks hovered near their lowest levels in more than a year.
U.S. light crude ended Friday’s session up 72 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $45.33, after reaching $46.22 a barrel earlier.
Brent crude oil futures were up 6 cents at $52.22 a barrel by 2:28 p.m. ET, having earlier risen to $53.80 a barrel. It had dropped 4.2 percent on Thursday.
Both benchmarks posted their third straight week of losses, with Brent dropping about 3 percent and WTI falling roughly half a percent.
Oil prices fell to their lowest levels in a year and a half this week and are down more than 20 percent for the year, depressed by rising supply and concerns about the health of the global economy.
• Oil prices ended with full-year losses for the first time since 2015, after a desultory fourth quarter that saw buyers flee the market over growing worries about a supply glut and mixed signals related to renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran.
For the year, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI)futures slumped nearly 25 percent, while Brent tumbled more than 19.5 percent.
Crude oil futures posted modest gains on Monday. Brent settled up 59 cents, or 1.1 percent, at $53.80 a barrel, while WTI settled 8 cents higher at $45.41 a barrel.
• Analysts have turned bearish on 2019, according to a Reuters poll. A survey of 32 economists and analysts forecast an average Brent price of $69.13 next year, more than $5 below analyst projections a month ago, and compared with an average real price of $71.76 in 2018.
Reference: CNBC, Reuters
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