Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: Powell says PCE report “pretty much in line”

Markets:

• Markets closed for Good Friday
• FX essentially unchanged

A holiday throughout global markets usually makes for a quiet news day but that wasn’t the case today with US PCE, Powell and some other odds-and-ends.

The PCE report had something for everyone but there was some US dollar selling in the aftermath. I suspect some of that was a sigh of relief that it wasn’t hot and some was due to the m/m core unrounded at +0.261% compared to +0.3% expected. Now some of that might have been because of an upward revision to January to +0.5% from +0.4% but the market will take the help where it can get it.

Powell himself struck me as incrementally more hawkish, though he did say that today’s PCE report was “pretty much in line with our expectations” and “good to see”. At the same time, he said the Fed wants to see more inflation reports like last year, which indicates it’s not enough.

What struck me was that he didn’t highlight the opportunity to cut rates this year, though he wasn’t really asked about it. In the longer term, he said that if inflation stays sticky for longer, they will hold for longer (importantly, he didn’t say they would hike).

In any case, the early US dollar selling was slowly faded and we’re winding down the day exactly where it began. Monday is also a holiday in parts of the world (Europe in particular) so we might not be back to full throttle in markets. Watch Asia though with the BOJ’s Tankan and China’s manufacturing PMI.

Have a happy Easter.