Market News

The dollar rose to near a three-week high against the yen on Thursday and fell near a two-week low against sterling, on news of the surprise decision from the Bank of England to keep interest rates unchanged.

Markets were surprised today when the Bank of England announced that it would be keeping its Base Rate of 0.50% and Asset Purchase Facility of 375 billion pounds unchanged.

The Japanese Yen was broadly lower on Thursday, pushed there by improved sentiment among global equity investors.

Theresa May became the second female Prime Minister of England Wednesday and promised to continue predecessor David Cameron's "true legacy" of social justice.

The Japanese Yen regained lost ground on Wednesday now that investors’ risk appetite has improved. The Yen had recently notched its largest 2-day decline in nearly 2 years, losing 4% versus the US Dollar, just since the beginning of the trading week.

The pound rose as much as 0.7 percent to $1.333, the highest level since July 4, and was 0.5 percent stronger at $1.3313 as of 7:03 a.m. Wednesday in London.

The Pound Sterling edged higher after Theresa May was appointed as the heir apparent to David Cameron, the outgoing UK Prime Minister.

The yen continues to tumble, hitting a one-week low versus the dollar on Tuesday as gains in equity markets helped spur selling of the yen which had risen recently on safe haven demand after Britain's vote to leave the European Union added to worries over global growth.

The Pound Sterling slipped against the US Dollar during Monday’s trading session and headed back towards the recently struck 31-year low.

Following a landslide victory by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition on Sunday, Japan is expected to set into motion a new set of economy-spurring measures.

There is a lighter news schedule this week, which includes input from central banks concerning the GBP and CAD, as well as some fairly important U.S. economic data later in the week. The key days this week are likely to be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Get the economic calendar for the week of July 11, 2016 here.

The U.S. dollar showed strength last week. Non-farm payroll released on Friday indicated that the labor market had snapped back from a downwardly revised 11k jobs (-6k private sector) to 287k (265k private sector), the strongest employment gain in eight months.

U.S. non-farm payroll data is scheduled to be released at Friday’s session and the labor market is expected to show increased strength over the previous surveys.

The minutes from the June 14-15th FOMC meeting were released Wednesday and seem to have had a slight stabilizing effect on Thursday’s market performances.

Australia’s continued government budget deficits as well as the probability of a political stalemate while the results of the last election are finally tallied may result in the country losing its AAA rating, after S&P Global Ratings lowered its outlook on the country's debt to negative.