Commodity backed currencies buoyed by Yellen’s comments

Elsewhere on Friday, we saw the Japanese yen collapse through its support levels. Janet Yellen, strong favourite to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, put forward an argument for continued quantitative easing, which triggered a balloon in appetite for risk in the marketplace. This pushed down the traditionally safe-haven yen and triggered global rallies in equities and commodities. Because of this we saw the commodity-backed Australian and New Zealand dollars surge as traders looked to buy in to riskier assets. We also saw the Canadian dollar struggle after a report on Friday showed the nation’s housing market had cooled. Looking forward to this week, later today we have monetary policy meeting minutes released by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Later in the week we have inflation and retail sales figures out of Canada, as well as a speech from the governor of the central bank. We also have a monetary policy statement and central bank press conference in Japan. Get in touch with your trader for live rates and market updates.