The U.S. dollar is stable against the euro and the yen in trading on Tuesday and is weak against the pound.
The market is waiting for Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell’s semiannual report on monetary policy, which he will deliver before the Senate Banking Committee and the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
Also this Friday, the U.S. unemployment figures for February will be released.
Powell is unlikely to say anything definitive about the further pace of the prime rate hike, since the key data that will affect the Fed’s decisions during the March meeting will be released after his remarks.
“The Fed wants to see more statistical data before it makes its next moves,” notes MacroPolicy Perspectives Chief Economist Laura Rosner-Whorbaton, quoted by Market Watch.
“Powell is likely to emphasize that the Fed still has a lot of work to do to fight inflation,” she says. – The Fed’s work is not over, and the central bank will continue to do it until it does it completely.”
The ICE-calculated index showing the dollar’s performance against six currencies (euro, Swiss franc, yen, Canadian dollar, pound sterling and Swedish krona) is losing 0.11% in trading, while the broader WSJ Dollar Index is adding 0.02%.
The euro/dollar pair is trading at $1.0685 as of 8:15 a.m., up from $1.0686 at Monday’s market close.
The pound/dollar exchange rate rose to $1.2040 from $1.2028 at the close of the previous session.
The U.S. currency pair with the yen rose to 135.94 yen from 135.92 yen the day before.
The rate of Australian dollar weakened to $0.6704 from $0.6730 at the close of previous trading session.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) on Tuesday raised its key interest rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 3.6% a year. This is the tenth increase in the cost of credit since last May, the rate was raised by 350 bps in total and is at its highest since May 2012.
Statement of the Australian Central Bank, however, was less “hawkish” than in the past, notes Market Watch. RBA stated that inflation in the country, probably, has already reached its peak level, and further decisions on tightening of monetary policy will depend on statistical data.
Oil prices are rising in trading Tuesday morning.
The value of May futures for Brent on London’s ICE Futures Exchange stands at $86.42 a barrel by 7:05 a.m., $0.24 (0.28%) above the previous session’s closing price. Those contracts rose $0.35 (0.4%) to $86.18 a barrel on Monday.
The price of WTI April futures grew by $0.21 (0.26%) to $80.67 per barrel at electronic trades of NYMEX by that time. At the end of previous session the contracts value grew by $0.78 (1%) up to $80.46 per barrel.
The oil market was declining for most of the day on Monday amid weaker than investors expected forecast of the Chinese authorities on the economic growth in the country in 2023, however closer to the end of trading turned to the growth.
The statement of the general director of American Pioneer Natural Resources Co. Scott Sheffield, CEO of U.S. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. said that shale oil and gas production in the Permian Basin will reach its peak level in five to six years. That’s because the best areas of the field for drilling and production are depleted, Sheffield told Bloomberg during a CERAWeek event in Houston.
Mizuho Securities USA analyst Robert Yager drew investors’ attention to Saudi state company Saudi Aramco’s price hike for European and Asian buyers for almost all grades of oil in April. “The price of the main oil grade supplied to Asia increased for the second month in a row, indicating expectations of increased demand in that region,” Yager said.
Turkey’s opposition bloc has nominated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, head of the Republican People’s Party, as a candidate in the upcoming presidential election, the Sabah newspaper reported Monday.
According to it, the six parties of the opposition bloc made a statement to this effect after a meeting in Ankara.
In turn, Al-Monitor reported that the leader of the Happiness Party, Temel Karamollaoğlu, announced the candidacy on behalf of the entire opposition bloc.
Earlier on Monday, thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside the headquarters of the “Party of Happiness” to find out who will run in the elections from the opposition.
“Sabah” notes that Turkey’s Good Party leader Meral Akshener, who announced last week that she was leaving the opposition bloc, has rejoined it and also attended a meeting in the Turkish capital. Akshener left the bloc over disagreement over a presidential candidate.
In January, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held in Turkey on May 14.
The elections were originally scheduled for June 18, but Erdogan has repeatedly stated that the vote could take place earlier. His party has pointed out that the elections in June will coincide with the peak of the tourist season, so it would be better to postpone them.
Pre-election polls show that the battle in both the presidential and parliamentary elections will be fierce.
Western media call the upcoming elections “the biggest test” for Erdoğan in the last 20 years.
The number of victims of earthquakes that occurred in early February in the southeast of Turkey, exceeded the mark of 46 thousand people in this country, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The number of victims of earthquakes in southeastern Turkey has reached 46,104,” he was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency. Last week Ankara reported about 46 thousand dead, but at that time the issue was about data from two countries: Turkey and Syria.
According to Erdogan, the construction of 488 thousand new houses in the areas affected by earthquakes is planned.
The earthquake of magnitude 7.7 occurred in Turkey on the night of February 6, followed by a series of aftershocks, one of which had a magnitude of 7.6. These tremors caused serious damage and casualties in neighboring Syria as well.
OVL Properties LLC (Kyiv), created in January 2023, has bought the logistics complex Arktika in village Kryukivschyna (Kyiv region) for 200.5 million UAH at an auction in OpenMarket system (SE “Setam”).
According to the data in the OpenMarket system, a single property complex with a total area of 21.4 thousand square meters and a land plot of 4.9 hectares were under arrest and were put up for sale to recover debts from its owner.
According to the court materials, the owner of the complex BCT (Kiev) is debtor Dragon Capital Investments Limited (Cyprus), the amount of obligations is $7.2 million (UAH 190.1 million).
Dragon Capital Investments LLC and Inter Wei Capital LLC also took part in the auction on January 26.
According to Opendatabot, the founder of LLC “OVL Property” created a week before the auction is Elena Levshun.
As reported, in February 2019, Dragon Capital completed the acquisition of the Class A logistics complex “Arctic” owned by the state-owned Oschadbank with a total area of 21.5 thousand square meters near Kiev through its subsidiary “BCT”. Oschadbank sold “Arctic” in November 2018 on the electronic bidding platform OpenMarket state enterprise SETAM for 195 million UAH.
Later in 2021, Ukrainian businessman Yuri Kosyuk’s MHP agroholding rented a logistics center and opened its own Culinary Center there
Dragon Capital is one of the largest investment and financial services groups in Ukraine, providing a full range of investment banking and brokerage services, private equity, asset management for institutional, corporate and private clients. The company was founded in 2000 in Kiev. One of the key activities of Dragon Capital are investments in the real estate market.
