It has paid to listen to your friendly yen strategist — just not enough for a significant opportunity to make money. Year-end forecasts for the dollar-yen are on track to be the most accurate in recent history, according to data compiled by Bloomberg going back to at least 2006. But success has come from calling for little change in the currency, in a year where it has seen its narrowest trading range on record. Strategists began 2019 calling for the yen to trade at 108 per dollar by the end ...

The Japanese yen firmed against the dollar on Thursday after sources close to the White House told Reuters that a U.S.-China trade deal is unlikely this year, shattering investor hopes of a partial agreement soon and boosting safe-haven assets. The Chinese yuan fell to a three-week low in onshore trade on concern that a failure to reach a deal to roll back U.S. tariffs could deal a fresh blow to China’s stuttering economy. Political tensions between Beijing and Washington also kept investors on edge after a source told Reuters that ...

The dollar edged higher on Wednesday as worsening U.S.-China relations supported demand for the safe-haven greenback even as investors awaited the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s October policy meeting for clues to the path of future U.S. interest rates. Investors, who in recent weeks had grown optimistic that Washington and Beijing would sign a so-called “phase one” deal this month to scale back their 16-month-long trade war, were worried by a hardening of the trade war rhetoric from both sides. The United States would raise tariffs on Chinese ...

The dollar rose on Wednesday and trade-exposed currencies fell after the U.S. president threatened a trade war escalation and China condemned a U.S. senate measure backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. China’s yuan slipped to a new two-week low in overnight trading after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to raise new tariffs on Chinese imports if ongoing trade negotiations fail. China condemned the U.S. legislation aimed at protecting human rights in Hong Kong, saying that the U.S. should stop interfering. After four days of falling, the dollar was up 0.1% ...

The Canadian dollar weakened to a near six-week low against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday after a speech by a senior Bank of Canada official supported the view that the central bank is moving closer to an interest rate cut. Canada’s financial system is in a relatively good place to weather any potential storms generated by a weakening global economy and the trade war between the United States and China, Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins said. “The open-ended tone of Wilkins’ remarks arguably pushed the Bank slightly ...

The dollar stabilised against a broad basket of other currencies on Tuesday after three consecutive days of losses as investors waited for the release of the minutes of the U.S. central bank meeting at end-October when policymakers had cut interest rates. Global macro hedge funds had ramped up their dollar selling for a third week according to latest weekly positioning data and some market watchers say hawkish policy minutes could trigger a dollar rebound. The greenback has hit a trough since late last week as hopes for a preliminary trade ...

The dollar dropped against the yen and the euro on Monday after a media report dashed fresh hopes that the United States and China are close to reaching a trade deal. CNBC reported that China is pessimistic about reaching a trade deal due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s reluctance to roll back tariffs. It came after Chinese state media Xinhua said on Sunday that China and the United States had “constructive talks” on trade in a high-level phone call on Saturday. “I think the market is overreacting to this,” said ...

The euro enjoyed a small respite on Monday, jumping to an 11-day high versus the U.S. dollar, on expectations that Washington and Beijing can soon sign off on a deal to end a trade war that has been a drag on global economic growth. Faint optimism for a breakthrough was supported by a report on Sunday from Chinese state news wire Xinhua, which said the two sides had “constructive talks” over the weekend. The export-oriented European economy has suffered from the 16 month long trade dispute between the world’s two ...

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, a group of major emerging economies known as BRICS, back the idea of developing a common payment system, a Russian official said. Russia and its BRICS peers have been looking for ways to decrease their dependence on the U.S. dollar and have advocated using their national currencies in mutual trade. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said “increasing non-market risks of the global payment infrastructure” was behind the plan to integrate the group’s national payment systems. “An efficient ...

The dollar was lower on Friday afternoon as some optimism for the ongoing trade talks with China buoyed trade-linked currencies like the euro and the British pound. U.S.-China negotiations continued on Friday as both sides sought to hammer out a “phase one” trade pact. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said progress was being made on the agreement’s details, which helped lift trade-exposed currencies at the expense of safe-haven assets such as the Japanese yen. Ross, in an interview on Fox Business Network, said there was a very high probability the ...

The European Union is planning to extend access to London-based clearing houses for EU clients beyond next March to give the financial industry more time to prepare for Brexit, the bloc’s finance commissioner said on Friday. A temporary EU permission, known as equivalence, that treats Britain-based clearing houses, like London Stock Exchange’s derivatives central counterpart, as EU firms even after Brexit is due to expire on March 30, raising the prospect of EU customers having to shift positions from London at considerable cost. “I intend to propose to renew this ...

From the dominant reserve currency for central banks to the main conduit for global trade and borrowing, U.S. dollars are the lifeblood for banks and markets around the world. A Fed research paper estimated in 2017 that as much as 70% of all dollars are held outside the United States and 60% of all $100 bills circulated overseas. Another Fed paper this year said roughly half the 1.6 trillion of dollar banknotes in circulation were outside the United States. Markets got a reminder of the greenback’s hegemony in September when ...

Optimism that the United States and China may soon end their trade war after White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said a deal was “getting close” lifted trade-exposed currencies on Friday at the expense of safe-haven assets such as the yen. Given the lack of concrete detail in Kudlow’s comments, however, markets stayed mostly cautious. “To be blunt, such rhetoric is more or less the same as Steven Mnuchin (who) said months ago that a deal was “99% done”,” Commerzbank analysts wrote in a note to clients, though they acknowledged ...

The Canadian dollar was little changed against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, holding near an earlier one-month low as a speech by Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz loomed and investors grew more nervous about a global economic slowdown. World stocks fell as Chinese economic data slowed in October and Germany only narrowly avoided a recession in the third quarter, adding to worries about the global growth fallout from the U.S.-China trade war. Canada is a major exporter of commodities, including oil, so its economy could be hurt by a ...

As dollars dry up, global finance is growing increasingly dependent on opaque currency trading to keep cash flowing. Banks and other short-term dollar borrowers are becoming ever more reliant on the $3.2 trillion-a-day foreign exchange swap market, data shows, leaving them dangerously exposed should U.S. lenders stop feeding the system, even if only temporarily. Swaps users had a scare in September, when the U.S. Federal Reserve had to pump cash into markets as rates in the $2.2 trillion (£1.7 trillion) U.S. “repo” market spiked and spilled into FX swap markets, ...