EUR/usd
It seems the markets got stuck at one spot again. Earlier it was the channel between 1.3250 and 1.3400, where eurusd was trading for a couple of weeks. Now the support is at 1.35 and the resistance is marked at 1.36. Yet, Friday's upsurge on the payrolls was an exception, but we attribute it to nervousness of the markets. This week began with the return to the lower bound of the channel, i.e. to 1.35. On Tuesday the pair retraced and hit 1.36, while on Wednesday it again travelled down to the bottom of the channel. Now trading is held at 1.3530, but the markets are all waiting for draghi's speech and will be in the “wait mode” right till his comments. The same situation is with the stock markets. They are consolidating after the continuous rally. We still believe that the markets may reverse down. Firstly, after such an exhausting rally there's little strength to continue. Secondly, the US and EU economies clearly show signs of slowdown. Very often it is enough for the markets to go on the defensive. Besides, we expect that today Draghi will have his say regarding strength of the single currency. Recently we've heard a lot from the BOE and Japan's officials about the benefits which weakness of the domestic currency brings, the real action is taken by the US Fed, which has launched the asset purchase programme. The ECB on the contrary gave quite bullish comments at the beginning of January, that is that the decision to keep the rate unchanged was taken unanimously. In the meantime, however, some officials from Europe spoke in favour of the weak euro.
GBP/USD
The sterling is waiting for the rate decision as eagerly as the euro. For about two days gbpusd has been trading in the narrow range of 1.5630-1.5670. This week the pound doesn't look as oppressed as in January. This day with its economic news is important for the sterling. The industrial production and trade balance statistics have been released. The former have proved to be better than expected (+1.1% against the forecasted 0.7%). The latter, as expected, has shown a deficit of £8.9bln for December. But the game is not over yet. Later the Committee's decision on the monetary policy will be published. Neither the rate nor the size of the QE programme are expected to be changed here. Today we should also learn what NIESR's estimate of the country's GDP for three months to January is. So, very soon the pound will break out of the current narrow channel.
AUD/USD
The aussie went below 1.03 at some point yesterday. Today there also have been attempts to break through this support and go below the 200-day MA. For now this level serves as support. But in favour of the Aussie there were employment statistics. Instead of the expected growth of unemployment, it remained unchanged at 5.4% in January, plus employment grew by 10.4K (against the expected increase by 5.8K). The Aussie will yet fight for 1.03.
oil
The performance of Oil proves that the rally of risky assets is petering out. WTI hit a fresh high in the middle of the previous week, when it went above $98/barrel. Now it is trading below $97 and yesterday the price fell down to $95. It's interesting to see this divergency since all that time the stock exchanges have been up at the highs. We tend to think that it indicates decrease in demand, which eventually will be reflected in the real economy indicators and stock exchanges in the coming weeks.
