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The chart of gold tells the story. It’s a slow-motion loss of confidence from Inauguration Day until Liberation Day. Afterwards, it’s a fast-motion loss of confidence.

There was some selling on Friday, perhaps in the hopes of a weekend trade deal with Japan, but there were dip buyers in a $50 fall on Friday and some recovery then followed by a $41 rally today that’s being bid aggressively at the moment.

Last at $3368.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Welcome to the new week, same as the old week.

The US dollar is struggling once again today, as it’s done for most of this year. Quite simply, the market is offering up a vote of non-confidence in the economic policy mix in Washington. It’s an untested mix of tariffs and antagonism towards allies that’s seemingly made up as it goes.

The US dollar would be far lower if the market believed that these policies would continues for the next four years but there is hope that the White House can get its touted 90 deals in 90 days. That said, there are no deals so far and Japanese officials went home on Friday and downplayed the chance of a deal to the domestic audience.

Already, USD/JPY is down 76 pips to 141.42 and selling has accelerated after breaking last week’s low of 141.60. Eyes are on 140.00 and the the September low of 139.56 now.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Five years ago today marked one of the all time crazy days in the commodity futures markets.

The May 2020 WTI contract started the day at $17.85 and absolutely, truly imploded. It
held for a time at the big round numbers like $10 and $5 and made a
stand at zero then completely crumbled to a low of -$40.32 per barrel.

It eventually settled at -37.63 a day before settlement in a fall of 306% or $55.90 on the day.

Once it rolled to the following month, the market began to find storage and sorted itself out.

It was also a good day for this analyst as a month earlier I predicted that oil prices would go to zero (to the derision of many — read the comments, and the tweet).

But it was a really good day for nine traders in Essex that made $660 million that day.

In a mockery of the norms of commerce, the Vega crew had ended up being
paid both for the futures they’d sold when oil was positive during the
day and for those they bought via TAS. That, combined with the profit
from the spread trades, resulted in a total take of $660 million for the
nine biggest earners, according to the trading data. Demetriou, who’s
31; Pickering, 25; and Younger, 22, pocketed in excess of $100 million
each, while Roase made about $90 million. Commins took home $30 million
or so. Even his son, George, who’s in his early 20s with little apparent
trading experience, made $8 million.

RIP to whoever was on the other side of that trade.

As for today’s, trade WTI is down 93-cents to $63.75 as weekend reports highlighted progress on US-Iran talks.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

The US dollar is on the backfoot as the new week gets under way.

The market had priced in some hope of progress on trade deals over the weekend but Japanese officials flew home to regroup late on Friday. S&P 500 futures are down 0.5% and the US dollar is broadly weaker.

The main selling in the US dollar is against the yen, Swiss franc and euro. The latter is up 35 pips to 1.1426.

It’s a holiday today in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, France and the UK so that should keep things quiet.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Markets experienced another turbulent week last week as tariff updates from the United States and other countries continued to roil financial products.
The long Easter weekend will see liquidity issues on Monday with many major financial centres still on a break, but again, investors are expecting to see big moves on trade and tariff calls.
It is a relatively quiet week in terms of macroeconomic data updates and central bank input; however, the combination of thin liquidity and volatile trade conditions should make for another busy week for traders.

Here is our usual day-by-day breakdown of the major risk events this week:

The Easter long weekend will extend into Monday trading with thin liquidity conditions likely to continue. The Asian session will see a big focus on Chinese Loan Prime Rate updates, especially in light of the trade tariffs from the US, but there is little else on the calendar for the rest of the day.

All major markets return to the fray from Tuesday, but there is little on the calendar to deviate attention from geopolitical updates. We do hear from ECB President Christine Lagarde during the European session, and we have the Richmond Manufacturing Index in the US session, but overall expect news updates to dominate flow.

We have a raft of Flash Services and Manufacturing PMI data due out across the trading day today, with data due from Australia, France, Germany, the UK, the EU, and the US. We also have New Home Sales data due in the US, as well as speeches from the Fed’s Waller and Goolsbee, and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

There is nothing of note due out on the calendar in the Asian session on Thursday and just the German IFO Business Climate data in the London session. However, the US session sees the usual release of the Weekly Unemployment Claims numbers alongside the Durable Goods and Existing Home Sales data.

Australian and Kiwi markets are closed on Friday for ANZAC Day celebrations, which will hit liquidity in Asia. However, we do have the key Tokyo CPI numbers due out in Japan.
The initial focus will be on UK markets at the European open, with the UK Retail Sales numbers due out early in the day before focus switches to Swiss markets with SNB Chair Martin Schlegel due to speak midway through the day. The New York open will see the initial focus north of the border for Canadian Retail Sales data before moving back to the US for the Revised University of Michigan numbers, before we hit the end of another trading week.

The post The Week Ahead – Week Commencing 21 April 2025 first appeared on IC Markets | Official Blog.

Trump’s team has been touting progress towards a deal with Japan and market participants have been watching closely for the contours, as it will offer a framework for others. But Japanese economic revitalization minister Ryosei Akazawa left the US on Friday without a deal and that a deal would take some time.

“We’re not going to make a quick deal,” Akazawa said. “It’s difficult to
say how long it will take to bridge the gap (between the two sides).”

The Japanese press reported today that one of the offers was to drop domestic auto regulations.

A new round of negotiations are scheduled for ‘later this month’, according to PM Ishiba.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

The Good Friday holiday ensured it would be a quieter day than most this year but it wasn’t exactly quiet in the FX market. There were some decent moves on the day on Friday and the general theme remained USD selling.

The brunt of it came via USD/CHF, which dropped another 35 pips. The pair is in the middle of the weekly range after hitting a 10-year low last Friday. It’s consolidating just off those lows and the lack of a bounce isn’t exactly inspiring.

There are some hopes for progress in some US trade negotiations over the long weekend so keep an eye out for news.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

• We will take a pass if parties make it difficult to end war in Ukraine but hopes it doesn’t come to that
• He doesn’t want to say he’s walking away from the talks

He also repeated that Powell should bring rates down.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.

Bloomberg reports that “the US presented allies with proposals to enable a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, including an outline of terms to end the fighting and ease sanctions on Russia in the event of a lasting ceasefire”.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

• Will step up counter-cyclical adjustment.
• Will strive to stabilise employment, foreign trade.
• Will boost consumption, domestic demand.
• Will encourage companies to actively stabilise employment.
• Will support foreign companies to reinvest in China.
• Will continue to stabilise stock market.
• WIll continue to promote stable and healthy development of property market.
• Will boost service consumption in elderly care, childbirth, culture and tourism.
• Will boost enthusiasm of private investment.

There’s nothing here that we haven’t already heard.

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

• China’s top legislature to meet on 27-30 April this month
• Japan Government: Economy recovering moderately but sees uncertainty from US trade policy
• ECB’s Muller: Near-term growth outlook is more challenging
• ECB’s Villeroy: Inflation risk from trade tensions seems weak and could even be downward
• US Rubio: We need to determine whether it’s possible to end the war in Ukraine
• What are the main events for today?
• Always remember that there’s two sides to the coin
• BOJ governor Ueda: Will raise rates if forecast of underlying inflation materialises
• FX option expiries for 18 April 10am New York cut

It’s Good Friday and with the markets closed, the session went by as you would expect: no movement. The FX and Crypto markets are open but it’s been a snoozefest all around.

We haven’t got any notable news throughout the session. The US Secretary of State Rubio just let everybody know that the US is going to move on if they don’t reach a Russia-Ukraine peace deal very soon.

A couple of ECB speakers repeated that the focus now switched to growth given the expected slowdown from the US trade policies and therefore rate cuts are justified considering also the stronger euro and progress on the inflation front.

The American session will probably be as boring given that we don’t have anything on the agenda other than Fed’s Daly speech.

Have a nice weekend and Happy Easter to those who celebrate!

This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at www.forexlive.com.

The main agenda this time around is to continue reviewing draft private sector promotion law. For some context, the draft was released for public consultations during October last year. And then it was deliberated by the committee in their previous sessions last December and in February this year. This will be the 15th session of the current iteration of the NPC, with the next session set for June.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.