By Ankur Banerjee<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE, June 22 (Reuters) – The dollar was firm on Monday as uncertainty clouded a tentative U.S.-Iran peace deal following threats from President Donald Trump to restart the war in the Middle East \u200cand Tehran’s announcement it had closed the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Despite rising tensions, U.S.-Iran peace talks stretched into \u200ctheir second day in Switzerland under the terms of a memorandum of understanding reached last week to extend a ceasefire from April for at least \u200banother 60 days.<\/p>\n
Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, said it was not surprising how quickly adherence to the terms of the deal had broken down. “Ultimately, what matters to markets is the flow of cargo through the Strait of Hormuz.”<\/p>\n
Shipping data showed the number of ships that passed through the waterway fell sharply on Sunday after Tehran said it had closed the strait. That \u200clifted oil prices with Brent crude futures \u2060climbing 1.30% to $81.62 a barrel. [O\/R]<\/p>\n
“The physical market remains tight and that should provide some support, but flows in FX and commodities, particularly gold, will continue to be heavily influenced by developments \u2060in the energy complex,” Weston said.<\/p>\n
Sterling eased in early trading as traders assessed the political tumult in Britain, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer was considering his political future after rival Andy Burnham’s decisive election victory to parliament.<\/p>\n
The pound was 0.24% weaker at $1.32055, while the \u200beuro \u200bsoftened 0.1% to $1.1462. The Australian dollar was last down 0.19% at $0.70035, \u200bwhile the New Zealand dollar last bought $0.573.<\/p>\n
Markets will \u200cbe focused on Burnham’s views on fiscal policy and whether there will be any relaxation of the current fiscal rules, Commonwealth Bank of Australia strategists said.<\/p>\n
“A loosening in fiscal rules would likely be poorly received by the UK bond market and weigh on pound,” they said in a note.<\/p>\n
The Japanese yen slipped to 161.53 per dollar, hovering near a two-year low reached last week. A break beyond 161.96 would take the yen to its weakest level since 1986.<\/p>\n
Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said \u200con Monday that authorities were prepared to respond appropriately to currency \u200bmoves at any time, reiterating their previous stance.<\/p>\n
“The MOF may be getting \u200bsore necks watching USD\/JPY surge into the 2024 high,” \u200bsaid Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at StoneX. “Yet they may also feel powerless to do \u200canything about it \u2014 as intervening against the tide of \u200ba hawkish Fed and strong \u200bU.S. fundamentals could prove costly and futile.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ankur Banerjee SINGAPORE, June 22 (Reuters) – The dollar was firm on Monday as uncertainty clouded a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[43778,138,34867,219,111,139,69,226741,245410,14887,29517,93496,186009],"class_list":["post-489319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-andy-burnham","tag-business","tag-chris-weston","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peace-deal","tag-peace-talks","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-prime-minister-keir-starmer","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-war-in-the-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}