Daily summary: USD strengthened slightly during shortened Black Friday session

The dollar edged higher across the board on Friday in a quiet session following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday but remained near multi-month lows as the prospect of the Federal Reserve moderating the pace of its policy tightening weighed on the U.S. currency.

• European indices finished today's session mostly higher, with the German DAX closing above the flatline, and notched its eighth consecutive week of gains, after quarterly economic growth was revised higher to 0.4% in Q3 and consumer confidence rose for the second month heading into December.

• PBoC lowered the reserve requirement ratio for banks by 25 bp to stimulate growth in an economy battered by persistent coronavirus-induced restrictions and real estate crises.

• The Dow Jones rose 0.45% during today's shortened trading session, while the S&P 500 closed above the flatline as investors are looking for clues on consumer health as Black Friday shopping started.

• On the other hand, Nasdaq fell 0.52% dragged down by Activision Blizzard as the FTC is planning to file an antitrust lawsuit to prevent Microsoft from acquiring the video game publisher. For the week, the Dow gained 1.9%, the S&P 500 1.6% and the Nasdaq 0.9%.

• OIL.WTI pulled back from session highs and is set to end the week over 2% lower as worries of the Chinese pandemic situation and reports of a high price cap by G7 nations on Russian oil eased supply worries.

• EU is set to resume talks about a price cap on Russian oil, with the member states hoping to come to an agreement on the specifics, however according to WSJ no talks are planned over the weekend. Oil will have a chance to move on December 4 when OPEC+ meeting will take place.

• The dollar index regained some ground above the 106 mark on Friday, recovering from an over three-month low of around 105.6 in the prior session. Currently USD and EUR are the best performing currencies while NZD and CAD lag the most.

• Precious metals swung between gain and losses and finished the session slightly below the flatline. Next week's NFP data may be crucial for gold and silver.

• Major cryptocurrencies fell slightly today, however the scale of declines is small for these asset classes. Bitcoin fell below $16500, while Ethereum pulled away from major resistance at $1200.

NZDUSD failed to break above the long-term downward trendline and returned to major support at 0.6240.