As the British Pound mostly ignored the strong reading of UK Retail Sales yesterday, it was unable to post gains against all major currencies.
The only bullish-performing commodity was corn on Thursday, which managed to rally by 1.2%. However, other components were precipitously losing value and the precious metals were those to drop the most.
US Dollar started to appreciate strongly only on the second day after the Federal Reserve's rate decision. Yesterday it surged by 0.8% versus the common European currency, although other fundamentals have most favoured the Euro.
The US currency advanced against most major peers after the Fed finally hiked interest rates, but gains were limited due to no positive or negative surprises from the Fed's chair.
The British currency declined against most major peers on Wednesday, amid poor Claimant Count Change data.
Precious metals posted a clear surge in value yesterday, as gold and silver added 1% and 2.9%, respectively. These commodities had a positive response to the Federal Reserve's crucial and historical decision to hike the target range for the Federal Funds rate by 25 bps to 0.25-0.50%.
The Japanese Yen was hurt by a declining Japanese trade balance, which swung back into the red zone in November and sent the national currency lower. A shortfall reached 379.7 billion yen last month, following a positive exports-imports gap of 111.5 billion yen in October.
With the rising hype of the Fed rate hike today, the US Dollar managed to advance against most major peers on Tuesday.
The Sterling ignored the British inflation data on Tuesday and declined against most major peers.
Yesterday both Crude and Brent oil jumped by 2.9% and 1.4%, respectively. This was a first confident day of gains in many weeks, as bearish traders decided to fix profit one day before the highly-volatile and uncertain FOMC decision.
In spite of recovering oil prices, the Australian Dollar failed to show value gains versus the European common currency on Tuesday, as the EUR/AUD cross was the day's biggest gainer with a rise of 0.15%.
The Buck experienced mixed performance on Monday, having appreciated against some major peers and declined against the others.
The British Pound suffered losses against most major peers on BoE Shafik's remarks.
Oil prices managed to stop dipping down on Monday, after a long losing streak we observed last week. They moved away from the multi-year lows and gained up to 2% yesterday.
The Euro hovered in a mixed environment on Monday of this week, but the overall EUR Index was aggregately unchanged. Three components, which include all commodity-linked currencies, felt heavy downside pressure yesterday.
The US Dollar experienced mixed performance over Friday and the weekend, having appreciated only against commodity currencies, which in turn suffered from falling oil prices.
The British currency advanced mostly against commodity currencies on Friday and over the weekend.
Oil prices crashed by more than 3% on Friday, with Crude tumbling by 3.1% to trade $36 per barrel. Brent took an even sharper hit of 4.5%, which puts the spot price below $38.
The European currency benefited from heavy losses suffered by commodity-related currencies on Friday, which were caused by the steep oil price decline. EUR/AUD skyrocketed a mere 1.7% and EUR/CAD followed with a rally of 1.4%. Also, the Euro/Kiwi cross closed the session with a surge of more than one full percentage point.
The Buck appreciated against most major peers on Thursday, with exception against the Kiwi and the Aussie.
The Pound declined against most of commodity currencies and some other major peers, but also managed advance against other currencies.
Thursday used to be a red day for the vast part of commodities that are included in our daily review. Only corn managed to rise by 1.5% on a day-to-day basis, while pushing the benchmark S&P GSCI Index also into the positive territory (+0.15%).
The Euro has given up some earlier gains we had observed back on Wednesday. Yesterday the 19-nation currency depreciated against all of its main counterparts, posting the sharpest drop versus the Aussie and Kiwi. Both South Pacific currencies had their own personal reasons for the appreciation.
The Greenback suffered serious losses against most major peers, caused by a broad USD sell-off during the US trading session.