[B]Market Review[/B] - 09/04/2014 [I]22:45GMT [/I]
[B]U.S. dollar falls broadly after perceived dovish FOMC minutes[/B]
The single currency maintained a firm undertone on Wednesday and jumped to an intra-day high of 1.3866 on improved risk appetites after the release of perceived dovish FOMC minutes as U.S. stock market rallied.
Minutes of the U.S. central bank’s March 18-19 policy-setting meeting, Janet Yellen’s first as chair, did not reveal any discussion of keeping rates near zero for a “considerable time,” as the Fed mentioned in a policy statement issued after the meeting.
Federal Reserve policymakers were unanimous in wanting to ditch the thresholds they had been using to telegraph a policy tightening, according to minutes of a meeting last month that shed little new light on what might prompt an interest-rate rise.
U.S. 3-year, 5-year, 7-year Treasuries yields touched fresh 3-week lows. U.S. interest rate futures, suggesting market players see less chance of Fed rate hike in first half year of 2013 after the release of March FOMC minutes.
U.S. dollar moved inside 101.70-102.16 range against the Japanese yen on Wednesday after Tuesday’s cross-inspired selloff to 101.55. The pair rebounded briefly to 102.16 in European morning on short-covering and then retreated to 101.70 in New York session.
The British pound retreated briefly from Wednesday’s high at 1.6755 to 1.6725 in Europe following the release of U.K. trade deficit which narrowed to -2919 from -3910 million pounds previously, however, renewed buying quickly emerged and cable jumped to as high as 1.6801 after the release of FOMC minutes.
In other news, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said ‘U.S. economy leading global economic recovery; U.S. economy has come a long way from a very bad place; housing values have returned in a fairly decent way; many parts of U.S. economy that cud improve; Europe’s surplus nations need to boost demand; Europe needs to be alert to risk of low demand, deflation; Germany is obviously one of Europe’s surplus nations.’
[B]Thursday [/B]will see the release of New Zealand manufacturing PMI, Australia employment change, unemployment rate, Japan machine orders, machine tool orders, France industrial production, manufacturing production, CPI, HICP, Italy Industrial production, U.K. BoE rate decision, asset purchase target, Canada new house price index, U.S. jobless claims, import price index and monthly budget statement.