Summary:

  • NOK gains on the inflation beat

  • Trump-Kim summit announcement triggers risk-on sentiment

  • Investors await US labour market report

Donald Trump announced yesterday implementation of the steel and aluminium tariffs causing CAD to move higher as Canada was exempted. Today investors will be mainly focus on the labour market data from US and Canada providing CAD with possibility to extend gains. NOK is the best performing major currency following inflation beat while JPY underperforms against its major peers on the back of waning uncertainty on the markets. Gold trades a little to the downside while oil prices advance.

Norway’s inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February coming in above the inflation aim being revised down a week ago. It could prompt the central bank to bring forward its current rate rise estimate from December possibly even to September. As a result, the local currency has gained a foothold and it is the best performing one among its major peers.

Bitcoin is continuing to fall following the harsh statement from the US Securities Exchange Commission we wrote about yesterday. Let us remind that the SEC announced that all digital assets trading platforms will have to register with the federal agency.

According to Bloomberg the Brexit deal may not be reached within earlier set October deadline. Sources familiar to the case say that the real deadline may be January 2019. If this comes true uncertainty would weigh on the UK business as the new date is close to the Brexit day therefore leaving just a small amount of time for UK and EU parliaments to approve it.

In defiance of US allies Donald Trump decided to sign a tariff bill on Thursday imposing a 25% tariff on imports of steel, and a 10% levy on aluminium. During his speech he underlined that the levies are necessary for national security and to stop the “assault on our country” stressing that “without steel you don’t have a country”.

On Friday investors will be focused on the labour market data from the US and Canadian economies. USD traders will especially pay attention to the wage data after decent pick-up observed last time. Canadian data may provide additional fuel to CAD after it strengthened on the Trump’s tariff exemption announcement.