[B]Market Review[/B] - 20/03/2014 [I]22:52GMT [/I]
[B]U.S. dollar extends gain versus euro and cable after Wednesday’s hawkish comments by Fed Chair Yellen[/B]
The greenback continued to strengthen against majority of its peers on Thursday after Yellen’s message to the markets on Wednesday that interest rate hikes were not far away.
Although the single currency staged a short-covering rebound to 1.3845 at European open, renewed selling there pressured the pair lower and euro tumbled to an intra-day low at 1.3749 in New York morning on dollar’s broad-based strength before stabilizing.
The British pound tracked euro’s intra-day movements closely and edged higher to 1.6570 in European morning before falling to session low at 1.6480 in New York morning. Later, cable traded sideways for rest of the New York session.
Versus the Japanese yen, the greenback retreated to a session low at 102.21 ahead of European open, however, renewed dollar strength pushed the pair higher and dollar rose to a session high of 102.55 ahead of New York open before easing.
In other news, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel said ‘EU leaders will agree on further sanctions against Russia at summit beginning Thursday; current tension with Russia means G8 does not exist at present; EU leaders will make clear they are ready to go to 3rd stage of sections including economic measures if necessary.’
On the data front, SNB keep its rate unchanged at 0.0-0.25%.
The Department of Labor of U.S. reported that the number of people filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending March 15 rose by 5,000 to 320,000 from the previous week’s total of 315,000.
[B]Data to be released on Friday: [/B]
New Zealand consumer confidence, EU current account, consumer confidence U.K. public finance, Canada retail sales, CPI. Japan financial market will be closed due to public holiday.