“On net, we think that JPY-selling intervention is likely, if USD/JPY declines to 95-96 (before the Bank of Japan’s next monetary policy meeting on September 20-21)”, Tohru Sasaki, head of Japan market research at JPMorgan Chase Bank’s Tokyo Branch said in a note.
Advertisement
After moving modestly higher earlier in the session, stocks are turning in a relatively lackluster performance in mid-day trading on Thursday.
Officials were generally upbeat about the USA economy but some expressed the need to keep their options open in the need of more data pointing to strength, the minutes showed.
West Texas Intermediate, the USA benchmark, added 2.9% to $48.16 a barrel on Thursday.
GBP/USD is supported in the range of 1.3109 now trading at 1.3163 levels. Sterling inched higher against the dollar on Thursday after United Kingdom retail sales for July beat forecasts, apparently unaffected by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
Wall Street greeted the news with an effective shrug, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up less than 0.1% at 18,567.46, the S&P 500 in similar territory at 2,180.98 and the Nasdaq down less than 0.1% at 5,225.73 at about 1930 GMT. US oil closed at its best level since early July on Wednesday after weekly data showed a steeper-than-expected decline in domestic crude inventories. Silver was up 0.5% at $19.77 an ounce, after touching a more than three-week low on Wednesday. Brent rallied above $50 a barrel for the first time since July.
In the USA, the yield on 10-Year Treasury notes declined 0.022 percentage points to 1.536% as prices rose 7/32 to 99 22/32.
Reflecting the strength in the energy sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index and the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index are up by 2.8 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.
The minutes showed US policymakers were divided as to whether to hike interest rates in the near future, a move that would have hurt gold.
This week, William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY and a close ally of Fed Chairman Janet Yellen, said in a television interview that a September rate increase is “possible”.
Williams himself fueled some of that speculation with an essay published this week calling for a recalibration of the Fed’s long-term goals given a growing body of research suggesting US growth has permanently slowed.
“We have had some good jobs reports here, but on the other hand GDP growth is only 1.2 percent year over year, inflation is still below target, inflation expectations are low”, Bullard added.
Advertisement
The Malaysian ringgit tacked on 0.5 percent against the US unit, while the Indonesian rupiah was up 0.3 percent and the Thai baht rose 0.2 percent.
