Forex Today: Sentiment swings, fear could turn into panic

Here is what you need to know on Thursday, October 15:

 The financial world was once again led by the market’s sentiment. The mood improved during European trading hours, as the UK government will allow Brexit talks to extend beyond the former deadline announced by PM Boris Johnson on October 15. No progress in talks was reported, but the headline was enough to push GBP/USD back above 1.3000.

The sentiment took a turn to the worst during US trading hours, as US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke at the Milken Institute Global Conference, and said that getting a stimulus package before the presidential election is difficult, as talks are still apart on certain issues. The EUR/USD pair met sellers around 1.1770, ending the day unchanged around 1.1750.

Bad news in the coronavirus front. In Spain, the Catalonia region ordered tough restrictions for 15 days to curb contagions, including closing bars and restaurants and cutting down other activities. France declared a public health emergency and announced nightly curfews in major cities from Saturday for four weeks to limit the spread of coronavirus, while the UK reported almost 20,000 new coronavirus contagions in one day.  European governments are trying to avoid full lockdowns at the time being, but chances of that happening increase day after day. In such a case, fear will likely turn into panic selling.

 Commodity-linked currencies remained confined to familiar levels, trapped between the dollar’s broad weakness, and the sour tone of equities.

Gold managed to recover some ground, although gains were modest. The bright metal settled just above $1,900.00 a troy ounce.

Crude oil prices surged, with WTI ending the day around $41 a barrel, after encouraging comments from the IEA. The agency predicted a significant drop in global inventories in Q4 2020, after reporting that crude oil floating storage shrunk by more than139M barrels in September.

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