Undecisive markets awaiting for Powell's speech – Market wrap for the North American session - August 21

[Ben Graham]

Log in to today's North American session Market wrap for August 21

Since last week, Markets have been dawdling around in the search for further headlines concerning any of these three subjects: A resumption of Federal Reserve cuts, any concrete news relative to peace in Eastern Europe and any news concerning the US state of employment.

Indeed, the Federal Reserve's pause and Trump's tariffs are not generating any kind of volatility anymore, so the desperate research for more news is leaving volatility in a limbo.

Participants, in the typical summer-break trading, have been trading in lower volumes these past few weeks awaiting for Powell to say anything concrete at his Jackson Hole Speech tomorrow at 10:00 A.M.

The Symposium tends to create a lot of volatility as many Central Bankers use the mid-summer event to announce their plans for upcoming rate decisions.

Rangebound and low-volatility Currency and commodity markets have dominated the charts except for the one outstander (like the New Zealand Dollar yesterday for example).

Read More: EURUSD slides with focus shifting to the Jackson Hole Symposium

Cross-Assets Daily Performance

Cross-Asset Daily Performance, August 21, 2025 – Source: TradingView

Cryptos really seem to have attained some type of intermediate top since the past week – They have been struggling.

However, as mentioned in some of our previous cryptocurrency analysis, as long as Bitcoin holds above $110,000, the longer-run outlook is still not too bleak.

Oil is the one winner of today's session (you can access our latest analysis of the commodity right here).

Apart from that, it seems that Metals have also attained some form of intermediate peak – let's see how this develops.

A picture of today's performance for major currencies

Currency Performance, August 21 – Source: OANDA Labs

Forex movement has been relatively subdued again this session.

However, the USD is the winner of the session, at the cost of the Japanese Yen.

A look at Economic data releasing in tonight and tomorrow's sessions

For all market-moving economic releases and events, see the MarketPulse Economic Calendar.

JPY Traders will have to stay ready for the upcoming Japanese National inflation data.

You can access our preview of the data right here.

For the rest, except for the German GDP (2:00 A.M. ET) and the Canadian Retail Sales (8:30 A.M. ET), all eyes will be on Jerome Powell's speech tomorrow at 10:00 A.M.

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