Daily Wrap Up – 2 August

2 Aug 2017 06:18 PM

The New Zealand dollar fell significantly, with the New Zealand dollar hitting its lowest level since July 20 at 0.7390, following the disappointing New Zealand employment data for the second quarter, the employment rate fell by 0.2% against expectations of a 0.7% rise. This is the first time that New Zealand's employment rate has been down for two years, and the positive thing that unemployment fell to 4.8% at its lowest level in eight years.


In the UK, the Sterling shrugged off the sluggish construction data, which recorded its slowest pace of growth in nearly a year, pushing the GBPUSD up to a year high of 1.3250. Markets are awaiting tomorrow's BOE meeting with expectations that interest rates will remain unchanged at historical lows 0.25%.


In the US, two days ahead of Friday's important data, the US private sector posted 178,000 jobs in July below expectations to put more pressure on the US dollar, pushing the dollar index following data to its lowest level since May 2016 at 92.39.


US crude oil inventories continued to fall for the fifth week in a row, falling by 1.5 million barrels better than expectations which suggested decline of 3.2 million barrels, pushing oil prices to retreat near the intraday low of 48.57$ a barrel before rising again trading at  49$.

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