Once again the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Turkey is leading the news. The Lira is sliding again and it does seem to be bringing some of the other emerging market currencies with it.

As we’ve been saying throughout the week, it’s very possible that the declines in the crypto market earlier this week are due to a stronger US Dollar more than anything else.

As I’ve said before, in order to understand what’s happening in crypto, we must look at what’s happening in the rest of the economy as well. In this case, the US Dollar strength isn’t coming from Turkey, that’s just the catalyst.

The Greenback has been gaining ground since early April on the promise of higher interest rates in a strong economy. So far today, it doesn’t seem that the Lira’s slide is affecting the other major currencies though, nor has it touched crypto for the time being.

Today’s Highlights

Traditional Markets

Now that we’ve established the underlying theme and why the Dollar’s been surging, it seems that the situation has largely been contained. At the beginning of the week, the strong Dollar was taking out everything in its path. Today, the declines seem to be limited to the emerging markets.

In fact, of the major currencies, the USD is the worst performer today.

So even though the Dollar is rising against the Lira, Peso, and Rand…

… it doesn’t seem to be spilling over into other markets today.

Looking at Metals

Now that we’ve seen one of the biggest declines in the metals markets in recent history, it’s time to examine the long-term charts again.

Frankly, the weakness in metals still doesn’t make much sense to me. As we saw the Dollar strength earlier in the week, it did decline further but the declines seem disproportionate to the gains of the Buck.