The Swiss franc gained on its most-traded peers today as the trade war between the United States and China continued to make investors nervous, driving them towards safer currencies. Wednesday’s negative domestic macroeconomic data did not hurt the Swissie much.
Chinese site People’s Daily Online said that the USA risk losing rare earth supply due to the trade war:
Waging a trade war against China, the United States risks losing the supply of materials that are vital to sustaining its technological strength.
The site then added:
China has reiterated its stand in promoting multilateralism and tried to avoid a trade war that hurts public interests.
But if necessary, China has plenty of cards to play.
As for Switzerland’s macroeconomic reports, the KOF Economic Barometer dropped to 94.4 in May from 96.2 in April, falling for the second month in a row. Economists had predicted ahead of the report an increase to 96.4.
Released yesterday, Swiss gross domestic product demonstrated a growth by 0.6% in the first quarter of 2019. Market participants were expecting the same 0.3% rate of growth as in the previous quarter.
USD/CHF edged down from 1.0076 to 1.0064 as of 12:53 GMT today, touching the low of 1.0049 intraday. EUR/CHF declined from 1.1245 to 1.1227, and its daily low was at 1.1210. CHF/JPY inched up from 108.51 to 108.60.
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