EUR/usd
We can't say that yesterday passed under the banner of the dollar weakening, thus meeting our expectations. Yet despite the news vacuum in the markets the single currency managed to recoup some of its losses after the payroll release on Friday. For the most part of the day eurusd was hovering around 1.30, but during the US session it made slight gains and had grown to 1.3050 by the end of the day. The stats on Germany's foreign trade were quite positive, demonstrating a better growth both of exports (which means improvement outside) and imports. Usually, growth of imports is treated as a negative signal, but here it still seems to be different. The competitiveness of the country's export goods remains high, the trade surplus is still considerable and the fact that Germany started to buy more from the outside points at the consumer sentiment improvement and increase in purchases by German enterprises. Let's see what will come out of it. One of the signs of a crisis is that the weak get weaker and the strong get stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, in several years of balancing on the brink France is getting closer to the Looser camp. The industrial production stats released yesterday showed that it shrank by 1.4% in January, with the annual decrease now being at 4.5%. The final data confirmed the slump of Italy's economy in 4Q 2012. They displayed the annual GDP decline by 2.8% against the levels of the previous year. There was a slight upward revision for Greece, but it will hardly be supported by optimists. The GDP decrease in the last three months of the previous year was revised from 6% to 5.7%. Safe-haven bunds are getting more expensive. At the auction of the half-year bunds the yield dropped from 0.0203% to 1.0103%, France places the similar bonds with the yield of 1.029%, i.e. the spread makes almost 19 points. But it's a mere trifle. Today Spain places its bonds of the same maturity. Last time (in February) their yield was 0.859%. Though it is much less than the horrific 3.69%, which was reported last July, it is still far from being good, just like a year ago. Time moves on, but neither Spain nor Greece demonstrates any turn for growth.
GBP/USD
“Not a day without lows” seems to be a new motto of the British currency. Yesterday gbpusd fell down to 1.4865, today it is also trading not far from these levels and at any time can drop lower. These are hard times for the currency: today it will have to endure reaction to the statistics on industrial production (do you remember how a bit more than a week ago the poor Industrial PMI has pushed the pound down?) and trade balance ( the chronic issue of modern Britain) and tomorrow risks will be posed by Osborne's speech on the budget outlook for the coming year. God, save the British pound!
USD/JPY
Japan enjoys the first results of the verbal devaluation of its domestic currency. The household confidence stats have been taking off the ground for two months in a row. This indicator isn't decisive for the export-oriented economy, but nevertheless it points at the shifts in the consumer sentiment. For the first time in Great Recession the indicator grew to the levels of late 2007, having stopped in February at 44.2. During the period of economic growth (since early 2004 till 2Q 2007) it was fluctuating between 45 and 50. In the meantime, usdjpy has risen to 96.50 (the high was at 96.70), which can further inspire optimism in regard to the Japanese economy.
AUD/USD
The Australian dollar has been in good demand this morning, but it's mainly due to the external factors. The domestic economy indicators can hardly be a reason for optimism. The business confidence again decreased as the NAB index fell down to 1 in February from 3 a month before. The RBA points out that credit card purchases of Australians shrank by 2.6bln in January as well as the card balances (1.2bln) to 48.7bln. This is a low since October 2011. Against the wide-spread opinion in the markets we don't think that the chances of the rate cut by the RBA are now slighter.
