EUR/usd

The Fed's meeting minutes somewhat cooled the markets' adour about the further QE. From them it became clear that some members of the fomc plan to table revision of  the monthly  size of bond purchases already in March. Probably, March is not the best time since it may start with automatic cuts of government spending in the USA. The battle for the fiscal cliff was won by Obama, rescheduling of the debt ceiling discussion is also his victory. Yet, no matter for how long a deadline is extended, dealing with these burning issues cannot be escaped after all. All this again brings back memories of  the “Greek tragedy” with its constant extensions of a deadline, which only aggravated the situation. Then the US officials called on their European colleagues to act more decisively. Well, will we hear the same appeal from Europeans, we wonder? This way or another, the markets are really concerned about the further development of the situation. On the one hand, the Fed is no longer that agreeable regarding debt purchases (which allowed for lower interest rates in the financial system and made stocks look more attractive). On the other hand, it's about the time the government considered spending cuts and many realize that this time a serious sequestration will be inevitable. As a result, return to harsh reality has pushed the markets down from the multi-year highs (1530 in S&P 500) by 1.5% (to 1507). The single currency dipped to 1.3275 and has been trading around this mark for several hours already.

GBP/USD

There is no end to the pound's sorrows. Yet, the general decline of the markets on the release of the Fed's meeting minutes is just a part of this history. Earlier the BOE published minutes of its own February meeting, which highlighted a surprising fact that three members of  the MPC voted for extension of asset purchases. The hottest news is that one of them was Mervyne King. gbpusd which started the day above 1.54, by its end declined below 1.52, having rushed past the lows of 2012 and 2011. Against the dollar the pound was that low only in July 2010. Our target at decline of the sterling has been achieved much earlier than we could expect. At such low levels we prefer to stand aside from the currency.

AUD/USD

The Australian currency is back again at the lower bound of the 8-month channel. Under yesterday's selling pressure the pair again dropped below 1.03. At present it is trading at 1.0240 and is very close to the lows reported last week, when the pair declined to 1.0226. More important support levels are at 1.0150, the area of September and October lows. Quite likely, we will see their testing in the coming two or three trading days.

gold

At times Gold moves listlessly in the narrow range for weeks. That is exactly what we saw from early December till early February. Yet, sometimes all at once try to squeeze through the bottleneck, then this precious metal gets extremely fluctuating. Thus over the last two weeks Gold has fallen in price from $1680 to $1560 per oz. Yet $50 of this $120 has been lost over the last 24 hours. In the previous two years Gold frequently got support at 1540. Will it be the same this time?