The U.S. dollar resumed its decline on Friday, notching its largest weekly loss in almost a year as political uncertainty around the Trump administration continued to dominate the markets. The stronger euro rallied to fresh six month highs against the dollar on Friday, with EUR/USD advancing 0.95% to 1.1207. The dollar ended the week down 2.5% against the single currency. The dollar was also lower against the yen, with USD/JPY down 0.2% to 111.25. The dollar notched its first weekly decline in five weeks against the yen, falling 1.82%. The dollar hit six month lows against the traditional safe haven Swiss franc, with USD/CHF down 0.7% at 0.9729 late Friday. Sterling also gained ground against the greenback, with GBP/USD rising 0.73% to 1.3034 in late trade, to end the week with a gain of 1.16%.
The dollar gained strongly in Asia on Monday with the market watching the progress of Donald Trump’s first visits abroad as president with a flurry of deals signed in Saudi Arabia in the first stop.
AUD/USD dipped 0.19% to 0.7447. GBP/USD fell 0.32% to 1.2993 after an opinion poll showed the lead of conservatives cut by half in a Survation telephone poll published on Monday.
Crude oil soared over two percent on Friday as rumors swirled that OPEC’s working group the Economic Commission Board (ECB) was considering recommending the double whammy of a production cut extension and deeper cuts ahead of this Thursday’s meeting. The momentum has carried on in early Asian trading with both contracts trading higher to start the week.
After Thursday’s massive pullback, gold found its form again on Friday, rising 10 dollars to 1256 as traders hedged weekend event risk. Unsurprisingly, some of that risk hedging has been unwound in early Asia trading with gold falling from 1258 to 1253 in the session and completely ignoring North Korea’s latest missile test.
Net long positioning on the euro rose to its highest in more than three years in the week ended May 16, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. Recent economic improvement in the euro zone have raised market expectations the European Central Bank will tone down its dovish language at its next Governing Council meeting next month
