Oil Exporters Lead Currency Gains as Crude Rises on OPEC Reports

EghtesadOnline: Oil-linked currencies were the day’s biggest gainers as crude surged on reports OPEC had clinched a deal to limit supply.

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30 November 2016

Colombia’s peso and Russia’s ruble were the best emerging-market performers, while Norway’s krone climbed as other Group-of-10 currencies fell. Oil jumped the most since February as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was said to have reached an agreement to implement its first production cuts in eight years, according to Bloomberg.

Currencies of oil-exporting nations were whipsawed in recent weeks amid concern that OPEC’s three biggest producers -- Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran -- would fail to resolve their differences over sharing the burden of clearing a record crude glut. Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency and a a string of better-than-expected data from the world’s largest economy boosted the dollar, heaping further pressure on the currencies.

“Norway’s krone, the ruble and the Colombian peso are all up as you would expect them to be given the move in oil, but they’re not up nearly as much as they could be,” said Brad Bechtel, a currency strategist at Jefferies Group LLC in New York. “The reaction is being muted by the strength of the U.S. dollar.”

The Colombian peso, which until Wednesday had been little changed on the year, jumped 3.5 percent to 3,054.1 per dollar as of 11 a.m. in New York.

Norway’s krone gained 0.2 percent to 8.5131 to the greenback and 0.6 percent to 9.03 per euro, after touching the strongest level in a month. Canada’s loonie was little changed at C$1.3441 per U.S. dollar, heading for a fifth straight monthly loss.