020 7898 0500Elsewhere this week, markets were affected heavily by the US governmental shutdown, as risk aversion dominated the global markets. After a good start to the week following strong retail sales data and news that the central bank will keep monetary policy on hold, the Australian dollar fell victim to market conditions, with traders looking to sell off the higher-risk currency. For the same reason we have seen the New Zealand dollar perform badly. With the difficult situation in the US, Canada’s close trade ties has caused the Canadian dollar to struggle. This triggered growing uncertainty over what sort of demand we will see for Canadian exports in coming months. Throughout the week, both the Japanese yen and Swiss franc have performed well (particularly the franc, which hit 19-month highs against the US dollar), as markets look to buy in to traditionally safer assets. Overnight we saw the Bank of Japan unanimously vote in favour of keeping momentary policy unchanged and later on today we have PMI figures out of Canada. Get in touch for a live rate.
