The Pound Sterling was hit hard after the US Dollar surged in Asian trading on the latest political news which gives Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, renewed hope for winning the presidency. Yesterday, the FBI released yet another statement on the Clinton email debacle. This time around the FBI director stated that the outcome of the investigation initially determined over the summer, which essentially said that there was no real merit to the investigation and no charges would be meted, continued to be the case. That gave Mrs. Clinton a solid boost in the latest polls and bolstered market sentiment.
As reported at 10:34 am (GMT) in London, the GBP/USD was trading at $1.2418, down 0.77%; the pair had earlier hit a session low of $1.2383 while the peak was at $1.2525. The USD/JPY was higher at 104.441 Yen, a gain of 1.31% for the greenback; the high end of the pair’s daily range was at 104.6300 Yen. The EUR/USD down 0.70% to trade at $1.1067.
In addition to the FBI announcement, the latest data which showed a surge of Latino voters taking advantage of early voting has also helped to bolster Clinton’s numbers in key swing states, notably the state of Florida. It was reported in some areas that Latino voting was up 130% over the last presidential election. A win for Clinton is viewed by markets as primarily dollar positive, and any indication that that is the likely outcome is supporting the greenback ahead of Election Day which is tomorrow.