EUR/usd
The stock markets after some hesitation continued moving up to the new highs. The risk-sensitive FX currencies followed them. eurusd is trading close to 1.35. Yesterday's attempts to break through this level during the US session were halted by heavy selling. The difference between yesterday's growth and the consolidation phase of the euro is that the US currency is depreciating across the board. Thus, what we see is weakness of the US currency against the background of global optimism, rather than strength of the euro caused by the capital repatriation on the growing confidence in the EU periphery. Unlike the beginning of the week, the second half of it abounds in economic indicators. This day will bring us much important stats from the USA. The ADP Non-Farm Employment data are scheduled for release today. They are expected to grow by 160K, which is worse than in December, but still not bad. The advance GDP is of greater concern. Economists forecast the quarterly increase at 1.3% annually. Economists also expect increase in consumer spending. So, as it seems, the slowdown will be a result of the weak manufacture alone. But such forecasts contradict to the continuous employment growth in 4Q. Actually, we expect either poorer employment statistics or better GDP estimate. The latter is much more likely to happen. If true, it may spur growth of risk demand. Later in the day the markets' attention will be focused on the Fed's comments regarding the fiscal policy. Of course, we shouldn't expect that the Fed will mention the probable time of QE3 termination. Upon the whole, the euro may break through 1.35 today, but we rather doubt that this growth will have chances to continue. As we said on January 17, technically in the long term the currency has the potential to grow to 1.37, but it will hardly hold there for long.
GBP/USD
The selling pressure on the sterling was eased. Yesterday the currency had some rest thanks to the overall risk demand. gbpusd bounced off 1.57, grew up to 1.5770 and now is trading at 1.5750. All eyes are turned overseas and the US news will determine the end-of-week trend. Anyway, we shouldn't forget about the domestic economic news. The Consumer Credit stats released earlier today proved to be much better than expected. Earlier last year the BOE's hopes that the Funding for Lending scheme would boost growth in activity failed. The net consumer credit of £1.6bln in September was followed by the drop by 0.2 and growth by 0.1bln (revised up from -0.1bln) in October and November respectively, but the December stats improve the situation, demonstrating the increase by 1.7bln. The British are striving to ease the debt burden, but even they are sometimes tempted by improvement in the credit market.
USD/JPY
The across-the-board selling of the dollar, albeit not very heavy, provoked selling of the yen. The correction on Monday and on Tuesday morning eventually turned into the further growth to 91.0. The bulls need to hit fresh highs as soon as possible in order to gather stop-losses at higher levels. If they are not strong enough for that, the pair will be at risk of going into correction mode again.
USD/CAD
Yesterday even usdcad was moving in accord with the correlation rules – risk on/risk off. It's surprising that it hasn't happened in the previous weeks. The euro and stock indices have been growing together with USDCAD for most part of January. This extraordinary performance was caused by a series of poor statistics from Canada. Anyway, since yesterday's movement in the markets was provoked by weakness of USD, the Loonie reacted to it by returning to the parity from the weekly open of 1.01.
