Global currencies were trading fairly flat early on Thursday morning in Asia as traders wait patiently for Washington’s Friday deadline for imposing $34 billion of tariffs on Chinese imports. On Wednesday, China’s finance ministry announced that it will not pre-empt Washington’s tariffs, but that it will wait to see if anything changes before taking retaliatory action.
The euro was up a modest 0.03 percent to trade at $1.1659 as of 10:13 a.m. HK/SIN. The dollar was down against the yen 0.04 percent to 110.41. China’s yuan which hit an 11-month low against the dollar on Tuesday and has been carefully eyed by traders as trade tensions have mounted and the People’s Bank of China mulled the need to intervene, was stable as well. The dollar index was unchanged at 94.53 .DXY.
In the commodities markets, oil prices were lower on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump once again called on the world’s leading oil producers to increase supply. Trump tweeted that “The OPEC Monopoly {sic} must remember that gas prices are up & they are doing little to help. REDUCE PRICES NOW.” U.S. WTI crude futures were trading at $73.85 per barrel, down 29 cents per barrel. Brent was down 59 cents per barrel to $77.65 per barrel, a 0.75 percent decline.
On Saturday President Trump announced a new agreement made with Saudi Arabian King Salman that Saudi Arabia would increase its market output at its own discretion, a term which left vague as King Salman did not release any specific production targets.