17 July: US$remains soft. Oil down 4%. NZ CPI, RBA Minutes coming up. Fed’s Powell speaking later: FXCharts

The US$ is generally soft at the end of the US session despite a mild lift from the retail sales data, which came in as expected at +0.5%. The European majors are generally firm, with the Euro supported by the positive development in the high level summit between European Union and China in Beijing although Sterling took a bit of a hit due to the political debate, which has again exposed the level of dissatisfaction within British PM May’s plans for Brexit. The big mover on the day was WTI which fell below 70pb, down 4.2% due to expectations for an increase in supplies, after US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said some crude importers may receive waivers to continue buying supplies from Iran. Stock markets were pretty much flat, and there has been little market reaction to Trumps’ meeting in Helsinki with Putin.

Tuesday gets underway with the NZ Q2 CPI (exp 0.5%qq, 1.6%yy), which will be followed by the RBA Minutes although no major surprises are expected. China will release the June House Price Index (exp +4.7%). Europe will be pretty quiet although cable traders will focus on the UK Unemployment data (exp Headline Rate; 4.2%, Claimant Count Change -26.5K). For the US session all eyes will be on Fed Chairman’s Testimony to the House Senate panel, although the June Capacity Utilisation (exp 78.2%) and Industrial Production (+0.5%) are both due for release.