On the last business day of the week, today the financial markets are getting ready for the G20 summit that kicks off tomorrow in Japan. Besides the regularly scheduled events during the summit, investors are particularly interested in how the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will go. The two presidents have agreed to meet to discuss the trade war between their countries and ways of ending it. However, with months of failed negotiations behind them, investors are not too sure that the meeting will produce a positive result.
Still, the moderate optimism caused by Xi Jinping’s acceptance of Trump’s invitation to meet has been good for risk appetite. Today we can see a slightly weakened American dollar and a rise in the values of the Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian dollars instead.
If the weekend fails to produce any good news regarding the trade negotiations, traders will turn conservative again. This will be good for the values of the USD and the Japanese yen, but no so much for other currencies.
