A week dominated by central bank communications and seasonal dynamics kept investors on edge, even as the UN General Assembly passed without major geopolitical surprises except for some memorable US President Trump quotes.
The Swiss franc is sharply lower on Thursday. In the North American session, USD/CHF is trading at 0.8013, up 0.78% on the day.
Despite the best efforts of today’s US GDP report, which upgraded Q2 growth estimates by some margin, US equities trade lower in today’s session and look to set to continue a three-day losing streak.
The Australian dollar is coming off its best week since July, with gains of close to 1%. In Monday's European session, AUD/USD is trading at 0.6589, down 0.07% on the day.
Log in to today's North American session Market wrap for September 19
Today’s story was one of cautious optimism for global trade, as both Washington and Beijing struck a more constructive tone.
The Asian session saw a shaky start as US President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will be removed effective immediately.
The immediate reaction saw a gauge of the US dollar retreat as much as 0.3% and gold rose as much as 0.6% to around $3385/oz.
The US Dollar has been in a weird trading zone since the contradicting NFP report from the beginning of the month (forcing a dovish hand) and the strong PPI report that has shown the appearance of tariff effects (forcing a hawkish hand).
The New Zealand dollar has steadied on Monday. In the European session, NZD/USD is trading at 0.562, down 0.07% on the day. On Friday, the New Zealand dollar shot up 0.82%, its best one-day performance since June.
The Market is going wild from Powell's speech, interpreted as largely dovish! In case you missed it, you can access the text and a review of his live speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on this page:
Wall Street's main indexes surged on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at a possible interest rate cut during his speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium.
The Dow Jones rose 887.83 points (1.99%) to a record high of 45,680.14. The S&P 500 gained 102.14 points (1.61%) to 6,472.31, and the Nasdaq climbed 421.85 points (2.00%) to 21,520.79.
This week has been rough for risk assets, particularly tech. The Nasdaq has entered a correction phase, and the one for Cryptocurrencies is even steeper.
Markets have been awaiting further news from Jerome Powell concerning any type of rate cuts, as seen in the signs of hesitancy in Equities and Crypto. He is about to speak in a few minutes at the Jackson Hole Symposium.
New Zealand’s central bank (RBNZ) cut its Official Cash Rate (OCR) as expected by 25 basis points (bps) to a three-year low of 3% today.
The major surprise was the RBNZ’s monetary policy guidance that skewed towards a more dovish stance than expected. Its latest forward guidance shows that the average OCR is projected to fall to 2.71% by the end of 2025, lower than the earlier projection of 2.92% made in May.
Global stocks took a break after a record run, as a big drop in major tech companies pulled markets down. Futures suggest more losses ahead.
Gold prices have rallied from an overnight low around the $3323/oz handle to a high of $3360/oz before settling around the $3350/oz mark.The precious metal looks set to continue its choppy price action at the start of a busy week.
The recovery in Gold from the overnight low could in part be down to lower US Treasury Yields with the benchmark 10Y US Treasury yield falling from its recent highs.
There were a few signals traders could have spotted ahead of the ongoing selloff.
After last Friday's warning from Bitcoin, with an all-time high leading to a direct retracement, the crypto market has started to make its way off its most recent highs.
The ongoing war in Russia has counterintuitively been one of the most significant bearish catalysts in the black gold– Russia floods the market of Oil to countries like India to sponsor its war, prompting threats from Trump.
The Trump-Zelenskyy meeting just concluded at around 15:00 ET, leaving place to the ongoing meeting between Trump and a flurry of EU leaders.
Log in to today's North American session Market wrap for August 13.
After a rough month of July taking the most traded Major pair from 1.1830 highs to a 4-handle correction, the NFP report at the beginning of the month led a huge wave of higher mean-reversion – An end-July daily double top on the pair had brought fresh technical fuel to sell the Euro.
The Australian dollar has extended its gains on Wednesday. In the European session, AUD/USD is trading at 0.6551, up 0.33% on the day. The Aussie is trading at its highest levels since July 28, as the US dollar is showing signs of weakness against the major crurrencies.
The British pound is showing limited movement on Monday. In the European session, GBP/USD is trading at 1.3455, up 0.05% on the day.
The Bank of England is keeping a close eye on two key fronts as it charts a rate path - inflation and employment. The BoE lowered rates last week in a decision that raised a lot of eyebrows since it took an unprecedented two rounds of voting to reach the decision. The close 5-4 vote points to dissension among MPC members as how best to proceed.
The US Dollar is starting the week on a steadier footing after lagging through much of last week, weighed down by a string of underwhelming US data releases.
The energy commodity hasn't had its best performance this year. Oil got caught in the mix of many geopolitical headwinds between large supply from OPEC+ for internal reorganization (they want to force out some producing countries of the organization), Russia flooding the Market to pay for its war, downward revised global outlooks and tensions in the Middle East.
Earlier last week, the USD/JPY surged to a four-month high of 150.92 on 1 August, but its prior accumulated gains of the previous four sessions were all wiped out and formed a weekly bearish “Shooting Star” at the close of last Friday, 1 August US session.
The Canadian dollar continues to have a quiet week. In the European session, USD/CAD is trading at 1.3732 down 0.10% on the day.
The narrative had been confusing since last Friday's Non-Farm payrolls miss: All indices rallied above their pre-NFP levels in what seemed to be a total discounting of that new information, allowing participants to suppose that the repricing of a September cut (currently 91.5% priced in for 25 bps) would overtake the more pessimistic outlooks for Economy.
The week kicked off with a risk-positive tone as headlines around a Euro–US trade breakthrough triggered a sharp gap higher in global markets. As a result, the US Dollar caught a strong bid, with the Euro and Yen notably losing ground amid improving US trade positioning and capital rotation into USD assets.
Log in to today's North American session recap for August 1, 2025.
All eyes were on the Non-Farm Payrolls number, with its release sending markets in all-around chaos.
It has been the second day where North Americans see no particular market-moving data after last week's key releases, but this hasn't stopped the session from being volatile.
The Australian dollar has declined by 0.37% on Wednesday and is trading at 0.6320 in the European session. AUD/USD is down for a fourth consecutive trading day and has lost 1.2% during that time.
The Japanese yen is slightly lower on Wednesday. In the North American session, USD/JPY is trading at 149.25, up 0.16% on the day.
