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- In the Turkish Presidential election, with over 90% of the votes counted, President Erdogan seems to have confounded opinion polls showing him trailing his challenger. The latest data shows Erdogan has won just less than 50% of the vote. If this is maintained as a final tally, the two leading candidates will go to a runoff election on 28th May. The Turkish Lira fell on the news, in line with its long-term trend, as the President struggles for credibility on monetary policy. The USD/TRY currency pair reached a new 2-month high price.
- Markets are dominated by ongoing concern over the persistence of inflationary pressures in the USA, although there is perceived to be progress on talks regarding the debt ceiling, which is tempering the worry.
- In the Forex market, the US Dollar has done little since this week opened in Asia. Action has been dominated so far by weakness in the Japanese Yen, with the USD/JPY currency pair rising again. So far today we are seeing greatest strength in the New Zealand Dollar and the greatest weakness in the Japanese Yen. The long-term bearish trend in the US Dollar remains valid although the strength of last week’s retracement suggests it is likely to persist for a while. Nevertheless, trend traders may still be looking for long trades in the EUR/USD and GBP/USD currency pairs.
- The slow bullish trend in Gold remains technically valid as it continues to trade above the very big round number at $2,000, despite its decline from its high near the all-time record price of $2,070 reached two weeks ago week.
- Some soft commodities have been breaking to new highs and trending strongly, notably the Sugar ETF Cane, and the Cocoa ETF NIB, which both reached multi-year high prices last week.
- There will be a release of US Empire State Manufacturing data later today.