Weekend Woes Plague Dollar

The dollar hovered near 2 ½ year lows on Monday morning after a weekend of political turmoil in the United States in which President Donald Trump replaced his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, with General John Kelly.  The move comes less than ten days after the White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, resigned and the highly contentious Anthony Scaramucci was named as White House Director of Communications.  Scaramucci has an impressive track record as an investment banker, but critics have already castigated him for his proclivity towards foul language and have questioned his ability to communicate political affairs appropriately.

The dollar’s struggles were also due in part to the Senate’s failure on Friday to repeal Obamacare, one of Trump’s key platforms during his election.  The euro was steady against the dollar, trading at $1.1741 as of 10:14 a.m. HK/SIN.  The greenback was lower against the yen, trading at 110.44, and it was down against the British pound and the Swiss franc as well.

Asian Stocks Also Struggle

Asian stocks dipped modestly at the week’s open as investors flocked to safe haven assets such as the Japanese yen and gold after North Korea launched another missile test on Friday that analysts believe can bring the west coast of America squarely into targetable range.  The United States responded to North Korea by flying two bombers over the country on Sunday.  Gold was trading at $1,269.86 per ounce, just below a 6 ½ week high hit early in the trading sessions.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was down 0.5 percent and South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.19 percent in early trade.  Australia’s ASX 200 started the week in positive territory as did the Shanghai composite.

Sara Patterson
Sara Patterson has a Master’s Degree in political science and enjoys analyzing both current events and the international markets to get a fuller perspective of the currency market. Before turning to financial writing, she taught English writing skills to high-school age students. Sara’s work has been published on various financial and Forex blogs.