EUR/usd
It was all so encouraging on Wednesday… The euro-traders repulsed the bears' attack, got down to active buying of eurusd at 1.2945 and in a couple of hours brought the pair to 1.30. It is of interest that by opening of trades in the USA the euro had been carefully “put” back at the starting point of the mini-rally. Thus, the 1.3020 mark proved to be a strong resistance. Formally the bulls took cover under two favourable reports on spending in Germany and France. But if we take a closer look at the reports, they are not that favourable. The German retail sales grew by 1.5% in September (this is good news), but remain by 3.0% lower than in September 2011. We also shouldn't forget about a reversal in the German labour market trend, about which we learnt a couple of days ago. Here we should also add the utterly disappointing statistics for Europe in general. Eurostat reported yesterday that the unemployment level in the eurozone shot up to a new record level of 11.6%. Yet the figures for the previous three months were revised up by 0.1%. Now the unemployment in August is estimated at 11.5%. By the beginning of trades at the US exchanges the players had lost all the ardour of optimism. The interest in stocks appeared only in the second half of the session. Today we'll get a great deal of news from the States. Apart from the ADP's data which we described yesterday, the weekly unemployment claims will be released today. Over the last four weeks the number of continuing claims has reduced just by 30K, while unemployment claims have remained at the same level. Don't wait for any progress from the payrolls, surprises may be brought by the CB Consumer Confidence Index and ISM Manufacturing PMI.
GBP/USD
The British pound was surprisingly strong yesterday. The decline of the single currency against the pound took place despite Cameron's defeat in the parliamentary vote on the EU budget. It's all because of the disagreement about the EU budget plans. Politics apart, the multidirectional movements in EURUSD and gbpusd, most likely, result from the flow of the capital from one asset into another at the end of the month. The euro-traders have gone up to the highs of October 25 and thrust the pair back. Then the same capital was used by the pound-traders, who were selling the euro for the pound.
USD/JPY
The Japanese government is getting more and more unsatisfied with the measures taken by the country's CB. So this night these two institutions made an unprecedented joint statement pointing to the necessity of closer integration. Translating from the political language into the human one, it means that the Ministry of Finance will now have a greater control over the BOJ. Well, will this entail buying of the Japanese government bonds to refinance the budget deficit or fail to go that far?
AUD/USD
The situation in the markets is so dull and uncertain that even the aussie doesn't show any particularly favourable performance. The current level of 1.0370 could be observed on any of the preceding six days. So, this run of events can be considered rather disadvantageous for the Aussie, since within the recent three days gold has flown up from $1705 to $1720 per oz. Usually these two instruments demonstrate a strong positive correlation with each other.
