EUR/usd
The disappointment at yesterday's PMI data lasted for a few hours and brought EUR/USD down to its daily low of 1.3278. However, later the euro gained support on the returning demand for risk. The first trading day of the new quarter was marked by dominance of the moderate positive across the markets. The analysts more and more often point out that China's slowdown and simultaneous demand growth in the USA will make it possible to build a favourable environment for creation of new jobs. Can it really happen that the USA will turn from the world's largest consumer into the biggest producer? Very likely, as at present the pace of labour cost in China is rising quicker than the labour efficiency. In addition, there has set up a new trend for locating of manufacture closer to the consumers. Still we shouldn't think that all the models, which were in use earlier, will collapse in a moment. Anyway, there is a chance to see that China will stop building up its export at an unprecedented rate and switch over to serving its own needs. Europe meanwhile is likely to keep stagnating under such conditions, being suppressed by a heavy burden of tax toughening and high household and corporate debt load. Anyway, all these trends are long-term and it will take time for them to develop and become clearer. And for now the single currency has been hovering around 1.3350 for 7 days in a row. Probably, on the portfolio rebalancing and relatively high pace of the US economy growth the markets will tend to buy the common currency in the coming days.
GBP/USD
While Europe grieved over its poor PMI figures, Britain on the contrary was rejoicing at its own ones. The British PMI data proved quite strong, which was immediately exploited by the bulls. They drove the pair up to 1.6060, and though they didn't manage to consolidate at the reached levels, the pair has progressed conspicuously against its rivals. On the contrasting PMI data from the two regions EUR/GBP dived below 0.83 for a short time, thus breaking the slightly rising trend of the recent days. Will the pair manage to break the resistance at 0.83 and head for 0.82, we wonder? Such a turn of events is unlikely to be favoured by the British politicians, who advocate boosting of the domestic goods competitiveness. Anyway, the British issues pale in comparison to the European ones. While Britain is striving to rid itself of the excessive debt load (by means of the increased inflation as well), some European countries are just struggling for survival and backing from the international institutions as they're almost completely deprived of the access to private capital markets. But we shouldn't forget that the Bank of England will finish its purchase programme in a month and may launch another 3-month round, as has already happened twice.
USD/JPY
Meanwhile, the yen keeps strengthening and, as a result, prevents the stock markets from growing. For instance, today Asia was trading positive on the favourable statistics from the USA, but at the same time the yen strengthening put pressure on Nikkei, which closed out the day negative. On triggering limit orders USD/JPY slipped down to 81.55, however then the pair found buyers, who brought it back above 82.0. As we've seen many times before, the pair is bought once this very level is reached. Probably, it's the work of the Japanese Central Bank and a kind of resemblance of the Swiss policy. In case with Japan it will be an undeclared war.
AUD/USD
The performance of the Australian dollar is still disappointing. Paired with the New Zealand currency it fell down to its 6-month low, and against USD it remains slightly below 1.04. This weakness is mainly connected with the RBA's hint on the possible cut of the interest rate in the coming months. Something like that was observed a month ago, but the discrepant signals (slowdown in China and improvement in the USA) didn't allow to clear up the picture, this is why RBA kept the interest rate unchanged at 4.25%.
