Daily Currency Update
USD - United States DollarA persistently soft US dollar pushed up demand for the Canadian dollar to a six-year high. Demand for the pound against USD is also at a three-month high. The Canadian dollar continued to outperform against commodity counterparts, buoyed by an uptick in oil prices. As Europe and the US reopen, demand for oil could keep prices up. This could help fuel further CAD gains through the medium term.The US Dollar Index tumbled to multi-month lows this morning, hitting below the 90.00 mark. It’s down 0.3% at 89.81 at the time of writing. Weakening demand for the US dollar has also benefited the euro. Tomorrow, the US Federal Reserve will release minutes from its most recent meeting, which may offer some direction on where monetary policy is headed. The Fed is expected to keep its dovish stance, which could keep demand for the US dollar lower against its major peers.
Key Movers
URUSD continued to rally on US dollar weakness. The Euro weathered the storm of last week's stronger US activity and economic data and the raft of Eurozone PMI information on Friday could certainly add further euro strength. EURUSD is up over 1% in the last week and 1.4% in the last month.GBPUSD climbed over 1.421 briefly in early trading. It’s up 0.4% at 1.419 at the time of writing. Having underperformed for much of April, the pound now looks set for a period of outperformance as the UK continues its vaccination rollout. Attention now turns to Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey as he outlines a path to quantitative easing to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee.Despite an uptick across key commodity prices with both copper and iron ore bouncing back toward record highs, the AUD struggled to mount any real positive momentum on Monday. AUDUSD was up 0.4% at 0.779 this morning. We anticipate the AUD will remain range-bound between 0.768 and 0.78 through much of the week ahead.
Expected Ranges
- EUR/USD: 1.214 - 1.222 ▲
- GBP/USD: 1.410 - 1.421 ▲
- AUD/USD: 0.775 - 0.781 ▲
- USD/CAD: 1.201 - 1.208 ▼