Forex Major Currencies Outlook (May 18, 2017)

The US Justice Department ordered an official investigation on the alleged information leak to Russia so market watchers are worried that this could delay fiscal reforms. There were no major reports out of the US economy yesterday while today has initial jobless claims and the Philly Fed index.

EUR

The euro extended its climb against most of its major counterparts as medium-tier data turned out upbeat. Final CPI readings were unchanged from their flash figures, which indicated gains over the previous month. Italian trade balance showed a much wider surplus of 5.42 billion EUR compared to the consensus at 1.97 billion EUR. There are no major reports due from the region today.

GBP

The pound was able to hold on to most of its wins when UK jobs data came in better than expected. Claimant count change was at 19.4K in April, although the earlier reading showed a downgrade to 33.5K in joblessness. Even so, the unemployment rate improved from 4.7% to 4.6% while the average earnings index rose from 2.3% to 2.4% as expected to reflect wage growth. UK retail sales is due today and a 1.2% rebound from the earlier 1.8% drop is eyed.

CHF

The franc was able to rally again on risk aversion but stopped short of its climb when SNB head Jordan reiterated that they're ready to intervene in the currency market if necessary. There were no reports out of the Swiss economy yesterday and none are due today so market sentiment could dictate franc price action.

JPY

The yen was the biggest winner for the day as it took advantage of both anti-dollar price flows and risk aversion. Earlier today, Japan also printed stronger than expected GDP growth of 0.5% versus the estimated 0.4% expansion and the earlier 0.3% uptick. However, the preliminary GDP price index reflected a steeper drop of 0.8% versus the estimated 0.7% decline. 

Commodity Currencies (AUD, NZD, CAD)

The comdolls gave up a lot of ground as risk aversion was still in play yesterday. However, the Aussie made a bit of a bounce on stronger than expected jobs data, as the employment change figure came in at 37.4K versus the 4.5K consensus while the unemployment rate improved from 5.9% to 5.7%. EIA crude oil inventories were down 1.8 million barrels versus 2.5 million barrels but still enough to ease some oversupply concerns. Canadian foreign securities purchases and NZ visitor arrivals data are due next.

By Kate Curtis from Trader's Way