· The U.S. dollar rose from its lowest in more than a year and U.S. Treasury yields climbed on Monday as investors braced for news from this week's U.S. central bank meeting and possible hints on when the next interest rate hike is coming.
The dollar index was last trading 0.2 percent higher at 94.002.
· Many analysts and investors expect the Federal Reserve to say it will begin reducing its bond portfolio at its September meeting, but will await firmer indications on the timing of this effort at this week's two-day meeting, which begins Tuesday.
· Further U.S. rate hikes are not seen as likely until December. Futures traders are pricing in a 47-percent chance that the Fed will raise rates at its December meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
· The euro rose to a 23-month high against the dollar on Monday as investors remained bullish after latest business growth data for July pointed to only a mild slowdown, suggesting the euro-zone economy was still growing at a relatively strong clip.
The single currency was trading at $1.16465, slightly below a high of $1.16840 hit earlier in the day, a level last seen in August 2015. It is the best performing pair in the G10 FX space, up more than 10 percent so far this year.
· U.S. home resales fell more than expected in June as a dearth of properties amid strong demand pushed prices to a record high, keeping first-time buyers on the sidelines.
The National Association of Realtors said on Monday existing home sales dropped 1.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.52 million units last month.
· President Donald Trump's commission investigating voter fraud may request voter roll data from U.S. states, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a setback for groups that contend the effort could infringe on privacy rights.
· Long-delayed legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia hit another snag on Monday when the influential Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the announcement of a deal to move the bill forward was premature.
"We still have a little work to do," Senator Bob Corker told reporters at the U.S. Senate. He said he expected differences could be resolved quickly but declined to give a specific timeframe
· A sluggish forecast for U.S. economic growth as well as an increase in U.S. states' Medicaid and pension contribution costs is creating a budgetary squeeze in many state capitols, according to a research report issued by S&P Global Ratings on Monday.
While the risk of a recession within the next 12 months has fallen into a 15-20 percent range from 20-25 percent, the rate of economic expansion "is expected to remain fairly anemic at 1.8 percent over the longer term (roughly 10 years), well below the 3.0 percent average growth rate that prevailed from 1980 to 2000," the report said.
· Goldman Sachs Group Inc is pulling back substantially from trading that helps backstop the fast-growing use of U.S. exchange-traded funds, giving smaller firms an opportunity to grab market share.
Goldman has told fund providers it is scaling back its role as a top lead market maker (LMM) for ETFs and has already slashed the number of funds it supports in that capacity, according to disclosures, fund managers and other trading firms this month.
· Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled up 54 cents or 1.1 percent to $48.60 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 settled up 57 cents or about 1.3 percent to $46.34 a barrel.
Oil rose more than 1 percent on Monday, after leading OPEC producer Saudi Arabia pledged to cut exports in August to help reduce the global crude glut, and Halliburton Co's (HAL.N) executive chairman said the U.S. shale drilling boom would probably ease next year.
Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said his country would limit crude oil exports at 6.6 million barrels per day in August, almost 1 million bpd below levels a year ago.
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak also told reporters that an additional 200,000 bpd could be removed from the market if compliance with a global deal to cut output was 100 percent.
OPEC agreed on Monday that Nigeria would join the pact by capping or even cutting its output from 1.8 million bpd, once it stabilizes at that level from 1.7 million bpd recently.
Reference: Reuters
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