RBA remains on hold, AUD couldn’t care less

• RBA remained on hold at +1.50% as was widely expected.
• The accompanying statement had a rather neutral to dovish tone as it cited inflation likely to remain slow for some time, wage growth also to remain slow and household consumption remaining a source of uncertainty.
• The statement sounded similar to the June statement with main issues remaining the same as well as the tone.
• AUD/USD did not have a major reaction, practically ignoring the release. We could see the pair being USD driven for some days.

US President Trump indirectly threatens WTO

• US President Trump, indirectly warned WTO that “we’ll be doing something” if the US is not treated properly.
• The threat was made just after the EU stated that US tariffs on cars would have an adverse effect on the US car industry and would prompt retaliation measures from the EU.
• During a meeting with Dutch PM Rutte, president Trump also mentioned the possibility of EU-US negotiations about trade talks.
• Trump’s willingness to “fix” WTO could consist a new level of trade tensions and should there be further headlines we could see increased volatility for the greenback.

In today’s other economic highlights:

In today’s European session, we get Turkey’s headline CPI rate for June, from Sweden Riksbank’s interest rate decision and Eurozone’s producer prices and retail sales growth rates for May.

Later on, we get New Zealand’s milk auction data, the US factory orders growth rate for May and last but not least the US API weekly crude oil inventories figure.

As for speakers, please note that ECB’s Peter Praet speaks today. Please be advised that Bitcoin strengthened further yesterday, and traded above 6500.

Reports cited that Swiss regulators are considering to enable crypto companies to full access for regular banking services and that could have provided the necessary boost yesterday.

Main crypto rivals followed, Bitcoin’s trend.