USD Winner Amid Eastern Europe Crisis

The day started with investors optimistic about Eastern Europe developments, but the market sentiment deteriorated during the US trading session’s hours, resulting in the stronger USD against most of major global counterparts.

Ukraine has declared the State of Emergency starting 24 February for 30 days amid reports from US intelligence indicating Russia will likely invade within the next 48 hours, despite multiple sanctions imposed on Russia from West countries. Several Ukrainian government websites went offline after a DDoS attack blamed on Russia.

The EUR/USD pair trades around the 1.1300 level, approaching its weekly at 1.1287. The GBP/USD pair is firmly lower and at weekly lows in the 1.3530 price zone. Commodity-linked currencies, on the other hand, are correcting lower, but still holding on to intraday gains. Generally speaking, risk aversion is likely to persist.

The Japanese yen and the CHF edged higher against their American rival, although gains were limited. Gold is up, trading at around $1,908 a troy ounce. Crude oil prices ended the day little changed, with WTI trading little changed at around $91.80 a barrel. Wall Street start the day with gains, but gave up on risk aversion and ended in the red territory.

In the UK, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said they would consider selling assets after the main rate hit 1%, and referred to a “quite gradual” path to unwinding the balance sheet. He also added that the word transitory for inflation was becoming overused.