North American Market Wrap – August 19, 2025: Geopolitics Drive Dollar Strength

And the pricing in is coming for the right reasons:

The White House just announced that Putin accepts to meet Zelenskyy in person. The rest will be to see when and where the meeting will take place.

In other markets, the Spanish Government yields have been rising tremendously since 12:30 PM ET – The particular reasons why are yet to be discovered, but in the meantime, some sources indicate that it may be due to some problem with droughts and wildfires, but yields don't rise just on that.

Read More: Silver (XAG) and other metals fall as Markets price-in ease in Ukraine War

Cross-Assets Daily Performance

Cross-Asset Daily Performance, August 19, 2025 – Source: TradingView

The US Dollar and related assets such as US Bonds caught a bid in today's session as the United States and Donald Trump have regained some credibility after the successful meetings with the EU leaders and Putin.

This comes at the cost of Tech-related assets and Metals that had performed so well in the past few months.

A picture of today's performance for major currencies

Currency Performance, August 19 – Source: OANDA Labs

Consistent with the mean-reversion from yearly flows seen in Markets today, the JPY is surprisingly the strongest of majors today.

The US Dollar is of course a winner as profit-taking continues in other currencies. Let's see if this turns into the beginning of a new trend.

A look at Economic data releasing in tonight and tomorrow's sessions

For all market-moving economic releases and events, see the MarketPulse Economic Calendar.

The week really starts now in terms of Economic data after nothing new today (except for the geopolitical news).

The evening session is fairly full with Japan's trade data followed by the New Zealand Rate Decision (with a cut highly expected).

Tomorrow will also be packed, between the Jackson Hole Symposium starting.

In terms of economic data, the overnight data begins at 2:00 A.M. with German PPI and UK Inflation.

A few FED Speeches are expected towards the afternoon and the (not-too-market moving) FOMC minutes are releasing at 14:00 P.M.

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Ed Moya

With more than 20 years’ trading experience, Ed Moya is a senior market analyst with OANDA, producing up-to-the-minute intermarket analysis, coverage of geopolitical events, central bank policies and market reaction to corporate news. His particular expertise lies across a wide range of asset classes including FX, commodities, fixed income, stocks and cryptocurrencies. Over the course of his career, Ed has worked with some of the leading forex brokerages, research teams and news departments on Wall Street including Global Forex Trading, FX Solutions and Trading Advantage. Most recently he worked with TradeTheNews.com, where he provided market analysis on economic data and corporate news. Based in New York, Ed is a regular guest on several major financial television networks including CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Yahoo! Finance Live, Fox Business and Sky TV. His views are trusted by the world’s most renowned global newswires including Reuters, Bloomberg and the Associated Press, and he is regularly quoted in leading publications such as MSN, MarketWatch, Forbes, Breitbart, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Ed holds a BA in Economics from Rutgers University.