A hawkish tone in the minutes released yesterday of the last FOMC meeting minutes, and a stronger than expected ADP employment change for March didn’t do much to avert the USD’s decline yesterday at close, and even this morning.
In essence most policy makers were of the idea that the US FED should continue the unwinding of its massive balance sheet this year. The ADP on the other hand is widely considered the precursor of Friday’s much anticipated Nonfarm payrolls (NFP) so the positive numbers should have bode well for the USD. However all this failed to channel support to the USD.
The US Dollar Index (DXY) is currently at 100.48. Euro is taking advantage of a softer USD this morning – although the lead is quite marginal really with the NFP due tomorrow.
Affecting the USD’s mood as well has been the US-China summit due today and tensions of what could come out of it, specifically due to the US and Trump’s continued crticism of its policies. North Korea also test-fired another ballistic missile on Wednesday and this continued depicting a tense geo-political landscape.
