Dollar Jumps As Tillerson Emerges Alive After Putin Meeting

The dollar (and yields) are spiking as Rex Tillerson and Sergei Lavrov attempt to explain away what is pretty clearly a rapidly deteriorating relationship between Washington and Moscow.

Tillerson met with Putin for roughly two hours and this looks essentially like a knee-jerk relief move after Tillerson emerged from the meeting alive.

Here are the bullet points:

• Poor ties between U.S. and Russia can’t continue, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says.
• U.S., Russia believe in unified, stable Syria
• The two countries differ in broad range of issues
• Ukraine situation remains obstacle for U.S., Russia: Tillerson
• Will consider new proposals on Syria
• U.S. confident Syria executed gas attack
• Russia urges investigation into Syria chemical attack, says Sergey Lavrov, minister of foreign affairs for Russia
• President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that Russia is ready to restore accord aimed at avoiding incidents between their military aircraft over Syria, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says at Moscow news conference with U.S. counterpart.
• “As you know this memorandum was suspended. President Putin confirmed our willingness to reinstate it on the understandng that there will be clear confirmation of the goal of the air operations of the U.S.-led coalition and Russian air force — the fight against ISIS, al-Nusra and others”
• Putin met Tillerson for more than 2 hours: Lavrov
• Talks with Tillerson were open, substantial
• Russia sees no “insurmountable” differences with U.S. on Syria, Ukraine
• Russia sees attempts to interfere with U.S.-Russia cooperation; efforts to increase confrontation aren’t far- sighted
• Russia urges investigation into Syria chemical attack, sees U.S. readiness to support UN inquiry
• Russia, U.S. share common goal to defeat Islamic State
• Russia, U.S. agree terms of Minsk peace accord in Ukraine must be fulfilled
• Russia, U.S. concerned by situation on Korean peninsula, agree diplomatic solution is required

And the reaction:

Via Bloomberg

The dollar erased morning losses to post a slight gain as measured by the Bloomberg dollar index BBDXY, as a press conference between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov got underway. The greenback scored fresh highs versus both the euro and the yen.

• Tillerson described the talks as “productive”
• USD gain came as Lavrov emphasized a cooperative tone between the two sides even as differences remain; both sides agreed to some areas of cooperation, Lavrov said
• USD/JPY rose to a fresh high at 109.87, eclipsing the overnight high at 109.70 and squeezing stop-loss buy orders positioned above offers at 109.80
• EUR/USD fell to a fresh low at 1.0589 after orbiting 1.0600 throughout the session
  • EUR bids are in place below 1.0570, traders in London said