Forex Today: Crude Oil Hits New 7-Year High

Crude oil is continuing to rise strongly to new multi-year high prices. The bullish momentum is strong and persistent and we are likely to see yet higher prices over the coming days, although there is a key resistance level not far ahead at $84.07.

In the Forex market, the US dollar is firm while the Japanese yen remains the weakest major currency. The USD/JPY currency pair has advanced to trade at a 3-year high and looks likely to hit still higher prices over the coming days. If the 115.00 area is hit we may well see a pause or reversal there.

Bitcoin has continued to rise to prices above $62k after making its highest ever weekly close last Friday. The two leading cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ethereum, are performing strongly with Bitcoin having less than $3k to exceed its record high made last April.

The governor of the Bank of England signaled yesterday that the BoE will need to be ready to hike rates to deal with increasing inflationary pressures. We are seeing increasing evidence of rising prices, demand, and other inflationary pressures in several G10 economies, with US inflation now at an annualized rate of 5.4%. Soaring energy prices are also likely to fuel inflationary pressures.

Chinese quarterly GDP data just came in slightly lower than had been expected, showing an increase of 4.9% compared to the 5.0% which had been anticipated.

New Zealand released CPI (inflation) data which showed the annualized rate to be running at an increase of 4.9%, although the NZD was little affected.

Later today the Reserve Bank of Australia will release the minutes of its recent policy meeting.

Last week saw the eighth consecutive weekly fall in global new confirmed coronavirus cases.

It is estimated that 47.5% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccination.

Total confirmed new coronavirus cases worldwide stand at over 241.4 million with an average case fatality rate of 2.04%.

The rate of new coronavirus infections appears to now be increasing most quickly in Armenia, Australia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the Ukraine.