July was a relatively calm month in the foreign exchange market before activity exploded into life at the eleventh hour.
A wave of headwinds hit the US dollar all at once towards the end of last month. The main catalyst was the July meeting of the Federal Reserve, which failed to deliver the hawkish pivot that market participants had been anticipating. News of rare coordinated FX intervention in the yen between the US and Japan has further exacerbated the broad sell off as investors unwound long dollar positions. A weaker than expected second quarter growth figure out of the US did not exactly help the dollar’s cause.Andy Burnham has begun his stint as Britain’s fifth prime minister in four years, unveiling a blitz of policy announcements in his first few days in the job before disappearing on holiday after only a fortnight in Number 10 – a decision that has drawn a fair degree of criticism.