Titles:
Markets:
- The New Zealand Dollar and the US Dollar advance, and the Japanese Yen lags during the day
- European stocks rise; S&P 500 futures are flat
- US 10-year bond yields fell by 2.6 basis points to 4.463%.
- Gold fell 0.3% to $2,315.42
- West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.3% to $78.24
- Bitcoin rose 0.9% to $63,848
The Reserve Bank of Australia's policy decision was the main event in the Asia-to-Europe handover today. The central bank did not issue a hawkish bias, maintaining a somewhat similar stance to March. However, they continue to leave the door open for interest rate hikes, limiting any major ramifications for the Australian dollar.
AUD/USD fell from 0.6625 to 0.6600 due to the decision before falling slightly further to 0.6590 amid a firm dollar. But the pair is now trading back to 0.6605, down 0.3% on the day.
Meanwhile, the USD/JPY pair was hovering around the 154.60 level after rising in Asian trade before falling to 154.00 during the session. However, the pair has bounced back, now seen around 154.40-50 levels – up 0.4% on the day.
Additionally, the dollar has generally remained flat throughout with nothing else to deal with. EUR/USD is still stuck within a 20 pip range, mostly unchanged at 1.0760 levels. After that, GBP/USD fell 0.2% to 1.2540 and USD/CAD rose 0.1% to 1.3680 on the day.
In the area of stocks, European stocks benefited most from Wall Street's rise yesterday. But US futures are calmer, holding steady as we look to US trading later.
In other markets, bond yields remained lower while gold also fell slightly amid more pushing and pulling this week for the precious metal.