Currencies: Dollar, Major Currencies Stable As Shutdown, Brexit And Muted European Data Scrutinized

Many currencies were trading rather range bound as trading proceeded on Thursday, and majors, such as the dollar, euro and pound, were awaiting fresh drivers.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.06%  edged up 0.1% to 96.142, while the euro EURUSD, -0.0527%  was little changed at $1.1388.

The Brexit-sensitive British pound GBPUSD, +0.6134%  fetched $1.2900, up 0.1% from Wednesday.

The Japanese yen USDJPY, -0.07%  meanwhile strengthened some against the greenback, with one dollar buying ¥109 of the safe-haven currency, down 0.1%.

The New Zealand dollar NZDUSD, -0.4427%  continued in its recently claimed position as worst G-10 performer, dropping 0.6% to $0.6734.

The thematic backdrop was largely the same on Thursday as earlier in the week. Dollar traders were focusing on news about trade relations and the partial government shutdown, now on day 27. In economic data, jobless claims fell in the latest week, but revealed that more furloughed federal workers were collecting benefits. Meanwhile, a measure of the Philadelphia-area economy recovered sharply in early January.

Read: Why stock-market investors are starting to worry about the government shutdown

Elsewhere, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May was holding cross-party Brexit talks but had not raised delaying the exit date beyond March 29 with Brussels so far, a spokesperson of the prime minister said, according to reports. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn allegedly boycotted the talks, local press reported, and later tweeted a letter he had written to May, demanding that a no-deal Brexit had to be ruled out before talk began.

May’s government on Wednesday narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence brought by the Labor party a day after the premier’s Brexit deal was voted down in a landslide by parliamentarians on Tuesday.

Check out: What is a no-confidence vote?

Read: 3 reasons why investors outside of the U.K. should care about Brexit

The government has until Monday to offer up an alternative deal, with parliament to provide time to debate and vote on next steps on Brexit on Jan. 29.

In other European news, the final reading of December consumer price inflation in the eurozone came in at the lowest level since April, at 1.6%. All this comes just one week ahead of the European Central Bank’s first meeting of 2019 and shortly after ECB President Mario Draghi said that economic developments were weaker than expected.

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