The push and pull for the dollar continues this week amid a mix of geopolitical headlines from the Middle East. The US-Iran conflict seemed like it was about to start back up after both sides exchanged strikes since the weekend, before US president Trump said that the ceasefire deal is “over”. But after more exchange of blows overnight, Trump is now proclaiming that “Iran wants to make a deal” – again.
As mentioned earlier, this isn’t the first time during this conflict that we saw such a headline. And in any case, it is a go-to tactic that Trump has deployed many a time already with other key issues as well.
The bottom line at least is that he is looking to de-escalate, just that he wants the optics to play in his favour instead.
Despite that, it doesn’t mean we are any closer to a long-term deal. It’s been about three weeks already and there is still nothing to show for in terms of nuclear/uranium discussions, with the supposed timeline being 60 days. You can bet Iran will want to keep kicking the can down the road for longer, so we may see more of these sort of bust ups in the weeks ahead as well.
For now though, markets are taking the headlines in stride with the dollar moving back down. EUR/USD is up 0.3% to 1.1440 levels and is essentially flat on the week again. The highs last week around 1.1460 will be in focus, offering up some minor short-term resistance:
Besides that, USD/JPY is down 0.2% to 162.25 with GBP/USD up 0.3% to 1.3425. The latter is a notable mover as we are seeing cable climb to a fresh three-week high in breaching its key daily moving averages at 1.3395-00. That puts a more bullish spin to the trading bias for GBP/USD currently.
And we’re also seeing AUD/USD move up by 0.2% to 0.6940 as the currency pair also erases the earlier losses this week.
This comes as oil prices also move back down a little today, with WTI crude now down 0.3% to $73.27. At the same time, 10-year Treasury yields have also backed off the June high of 4.58% to sit at 4.56% now. And in the equities space, US futures are searching for a slight bounce back with S&P 500 futures seen up 0.3% on the day.
This article was written by fl9bde53b91e184082bbe3aa3acaaf2cb0 at investinglive.com.
