The past week in the financial markets was characterized by high volatility, as well as the publication of important economic data and news from the United States.
First, the statement by D. Trump that the customs duties on the import of aluminum and steel will be increased, frightened investors with the prospects of the start of trade wars. However, after the duties were raised and Trump along with Minister of Finance S. Mnuchin made it clear that no new ones are expected, fears have dropped noticeably in the markets. Against this background, world stock indices rose while oil prices soared. At the same time, the yields of US Treasury bonds again increased and the US dollar received support only in relation to the Japanese yen.
The high volatility that has manifested itself since the beginning of February will most likely not disappear anywhere. Moreover, any news from the US as well as data from economic statistics will support it. The main reason for this is a noticeable increase in expectations that the Fed will not only follow the chosen way of raising interest rates on the wave of the expected strong growth of inflationary pressures but also implement it with consistency. Despite the reduction of fears, one can hardly expect volatility in the markets to settle down. This basically means that there is more than one shock ahead of the markets.
A striking example of this is the publication of very strong data on the number of new jobs in the States, which exceeded all expectations. According to the data provided, the US economy received 313,000 new jobs in February against the expected growth of 200,000 and the revised January increase of 239,000. The unemployment rate, however, remained unchanged at 4.1%. The dollar reacted to these figures firstly with growth, which is natural. However, its positive reaction was replaced by a negative one due to market players' new focus of attention which was the data on average hourly wages. The results were not up to par and showed a smaller increase of only 0.1% than what was expected of it. And it was predicted that the figure will add 0.2% in February against the January growth of 0.3%.
These figures seem to have convinced many that inflationary pressures may not become quite strong in the near future. This means that the Fed may not continue to aggressively increase the interest rates. These data along with the background of the reduction of the degree of the topic in customs duties are the reason for the growth in the risk of appetite and the weakening of the dollar.
In our opinion, such an assessment of the situation by the market is purely speculative and is unlikely to continue. We believe that once these news are played out and the understanding that the risk of continued growth in yields of state bonds will not disappear has returned to the markets, the Fed will continue raising rates, which will support the dollar. At the same time, there are real problems for the Central Bank of Japan in their desire to actively change the current monetary rate. The dynamics of the yen against the dollar is bright at this point. The same can happen in relation to the ECB and the Bank of England since there are objective problems preventing them from vigorously proceeding to eliminate incentive measures and raise interest rates. In our opinion, we should not expect a further weakening of the dollar.
Forecast of the day:
The EURUSD pair, it seems, will consolidate today in a narrow range of 1.2275-1.2360 amid a lack of important news and publication of economic data. The market has noticeably increased in uncertainty, which is likely to cause the pair to continue to move in the range.
The GBPUSD pair is also likely to consolidate in the range of 1.3785-1.3930 amid expectations of news about solving the Brexit problem.
