Earlier in the Day:
It was a relatively quiet start to the week on the economic calendar this morning. The Japanese Yen was in action in the early part of the day.
Away from the calendar, concerns over rising tensions between the U.S and China will continue to test risk appetite.
On the positive, however, was a continued downward trend in new coronavirus cases. The downward trend and easing of lockdown measures will give hope of a speedier economic recovery.
Looking at the latest coronavirus numbers,
On Sunday, the number of new coronavirus cases rose by 75,594 to 4,797,827. On Saturday, the number of new cases had risen by 104,393. The daily increase was lower than Saturday’s rise and 78,198 new cases on the previous Sunday.
France, Germany, Italy, and Spain reported 2,500 new cases on Sunday, which was down from 3,490 new cases on Saturday. On the previous Sunday, 3,549 new cases had been reported.
From the U.S, the total number of cases rose by 18,838 to 1,526,611 on Sunday. On Saturday, the total number of cases had risen by 25,939. On Sunday, 10th May, a total of 20,329 new cases had been reported.
For the Japanese Yen
1st quarter GDP numbers were in focus in the early part of the day, which came in better than forecasted.
Quarter-on-quarter, the economy contracted by 0.9%, improving on a 1.8% contraction in the 4th quarter. Year-on-year, the economy contracted by 3.4%, which was better than a 7.1% contraction in the 4th quarter.
Economists had forecasted a quarter-on-quarter contraction of 0.9% and a year-on-year contraction of 4.6%.
The Japanese Yen moved from ¥107.182 to ¥107.229 upon release of the figures. At the time of writing, the Japanese Yen was down by 0.17% to ¥107.24 against the U.S Dollar.
Elsewhere
At the time of writing, the Kiwi Dollar was down by 0.02% to $0.5934, while the Aussie Dollar was up by 0.19% to $0.6425.
