The US Dollar sees another bullish day against the Ringgit this Friday and is now trading at 4.6330, the highest price since 1998. The move is due to 2 main elements: 1 – Release of Initial Jobless Claims data from the USA, which brought in a lower-than-expected reading (193k actual versus 215k forecast). The main element of this data is that it shows that the labour market scenario is heated, even at levels similar to those before the pandemic. This shows that the Federal Reserve (FED) still has room for further financial tightening through interest rate hikes. 2 – A 2-digit inflation in Germany and the highest in more than 50 years. As Germany is the strongest economy in the European Union, the announcement of higher-than-expected inflation (10% real against 9.4% forecast) caused investors even more concern regarding the economic situation of the EU as a whole. Faced with the heated job market in the US and the fragile economic situation in Europe, investors continue to sell risky assets such as stocks and other currencies and buy US Dollars to buy US government bonds.
