EUR/usd
It's great when officials pay their attention to the same figures as analysts do. Like was mentioned yesterday, although filling of the European banks with liquidity has helped to save the regional financial system from complete collapse, it still hasn't reached the ultimate goal that draghi talked about. Namely, it hasn't managed to increase lending to the business and household sectors. However, as the ECB's vice-president quite unexpectedly put in his speech, the Bank didn't pursue the goal of supporting lending in the region. It's a bit surprising. At the same time, the situation in Spain is becoming tenser and tenser. Yesterday trade unions launched a 24-hour strike against the labour market reform. The Spanish have been suffering for too long. They have stoically endured unemployment exceeding 20% (such figures can be hardly found anywhere else in Europe now), haven't worried about the 30% decline in housing prices, but all at once have taken to the streets when their lifestyle has come under threat. The strike and negative sentiment across Europe put pressure on the quotes of equity futures, which had been declining for 3 days in a row. However, by the end of the day the situation had changed. The end-of-quarter effect went off. The stocks, which were strong at the beginning of the year and then fell in price due to the correction in the markets, again have attracted investors' interest. This turn of events in the stock markets managed to change the situation with EUR/USD. Having fallen down to 1,3250 by the start of trading in the USA, the pair then reversed and during trading in Asia completely recouped its Thursday's losses and reached 1,3365. These days we see abrupt reverses in the pair, so it's of interest what it will look like in the second quarter. Will we possibly see the same situation as a year ago, when the markets and the euro went into decline in May after the sharp upward movement in April? Everything seems to be heading for this.
GBP/USD
The British pound cannot decide which way to go. Almost for the whole March EUR/GBP has been trading sideways, having a day of growth after a day of decline. For all that, for GBP/USD the end of March can be called quite favourable. After sliding down to 1.56, the sterling got support from bulls and rose up to 1.5980. There is every reason to believe that today the markets will try to storm the 1.60 level. If they succeed, this start of the second quarter may look quite positive from the technical viewpoint. Taking a broader view of things, some more or less strong resistance is likely to be observed only around 1.65. If April becomes the month of bulls, we may see the testing of this mark already in the coming few weeks. All this may happen despite a certain disappointment at yesterday's statistics. Since the housing benefit programme has come to its end, the volume of mortgage approvals has sharply (by 9 thousand) reduced down to 49K.
USD/JPY
Japan will release its annual budget report today. The most interesting point is the sales tax doubling by 2015, which is meant to cover the gap in the government financing. Generally speaking, it is hardly enough, but here the endevours of Prime Minister Noda are suppressed by the opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament. Meanwhile, the correction of positions in the market at the end of the quarter generates demand for the Japanese yen. USD/JPY is now trading at 82.10, but has already tried to break down, just like it did a week and two weeks ago. Let's see if this attempt will prove more successful than the previous two.
AUD/USD
The aussie was given a respite. Yesterday the poor Australian currency was pushed down to 1.03, but at this level it was found attractive, as the whole market turned to buying the risky assets. Now the Aussie is worth 1.04 of its American counterpart, but if China's hard lending issue is still heatedly discussed, the perspectives of the currency may not be that rosy. There is also a chance that in the coming couple of months AUD/USD will test the parity.
