Lee Hardman works at MUFG. He is a currency analyst there. He said that the new growth in COVID-19 infections ‘threatens to undermine the current elevated level of bullish euro positioning and sentiment.’
Jacinda Ardern is a New Zealand Prime Minister. On Monday, she extended the coronavirus lockdown in Auckland. Auckland is the largest city in the country. In fact, Ardern continued the lockdown until the end of the week. Furthermore, she introduced the mandatory rule to wear masks on public transport across the nation.
The Australian dollar did not strengthen along with other risk currencies. Nevertheless, against the dollar, it was down by 0.1%, at 0.6532.
ING strategists wrote to clients that inevitable economic backlash will most probably fuel speculation that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) will step in with more cuts soon. It was something that has been a critical driver of the New Zealand Dollar’s recent underperformance.
COVID-19
Furthermore, they noted that the market is grappling with geopolitical concerns. The protests in Belarus poses the risk of direct intervention by Russia.
The foreign ministry of China said that it would file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its ban on Bytedance, the Chinese owners of messaging app WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok.
Some analysts attribute the pickup in sentiment to United States regulators approving a treatment for patients of COVID-19. So, on Monday, in early London trading, riskier currencies gained, the dollar fell, and European markets opened higher.
Due to COVID-19, more than 800,000 people have died across the globe. The deaths surpassed 170,000 in the United States alone from the COVID-19 pandemic. The country granted an ’emergency use authorization’ for treatment using the blood plasma from patients who have recovered from the disease on Sunday.
European indexes opened higher, and Asian shares strengthened overnight. Also, riskier currencies, such as the Norwegian crown and the British pound, rose against the dollar.
This is leading news of the market.
