Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson Quits

To make matters worse for the pound, US President Trump, who was visiting the UK at the end of last week, undermined British Prime Minister Theresa May by saying that Boris Johnson “would be a great prime minister” and that the US trade deal would probably be killed if the soft Brexit proposal went ahead.

Last week was also dominated by tariff and trade war-related headlines based on news that the US is about to release a new tariff list for Chinese goods worth $200 billion.  The announcement weighed heavily on the Australian dollar. The US dollar had a strong week especially against the Japanese yen due to Fed rate hike expectations. US equity markets were up, and the Nasdaq hit a new record high, while Facebook and Amazon scaled all-time highs.