On Monday, July 19, the USD was up as it maintains its recent robust tone as the surging coronavirus infections threaten the global economic recovery.
The Dollar Index which trails the greenback in opposition to its six other rival currencies gained 0.20% at 92.828. This is not far removed from its previous three-month high of 92.832.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus cases in the United States climbed 70% over the previous week while deaths were up by 26% as outbreaks occur in states with low vaccination rates.
Since May, the global seven-day average of new daily infections is over half a million for the first time.
The EUR/USD pair traded 0.20% lower at $1.1777 just above its three-month low of 1.1772 last week.
On Thursday, the European Central Bank will have its policy meeting after releasing its strategic view last week.
Likewise, the GBP/USD slipped 0.10% to 1.3754 which is around its lowest for over a week as the kingdom lifted its one-year pandemic curb today.
This caused a backlash from researchers saying that the easing of lockdown imposed great risk since the country’s covid cases is about 50,000 per day.
Consequently, USD/JPY plummeted 0.10% to 109.97 as COVID-19 continues to climb in Tokyo ahead of the Olympics as 45 people related to the games already tested positive.
Moreover, the risk-sensitive AUD/USD and NZD/USD both slipped 0.22% to 7.386 and 0.20% to 0.6994, respectively.
On the other hand, USD/CNY gained 0.10% to 6.4822 ahead of China’s central bank meeting on Tuesday where the benchmark loan prime rates are expected to get lowered.
China Digital Yuan
The pilot trials for the digital yuan project led by the People’s Bank of China have posted $5.34 billion worth of transactions as of June 2021.
According to the central bank, the country’s new blockchain-based currency has been used for 70.75 million payments.
This was across 1.32 million scenarios showing that its impact has reached retail settings such as stores, restaurants, transportation, utility, and government service transactions.
In addition, the PBOC stated that it will continue to expand the pilot program to improve its system-level stability and data security.
The program began in late 2019 in five locations in China where Shenzhen is the primary setting together with Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities.
