EUR/usd

The Malaysian plane crash over Ukraine put heavy pressure on the stock exchanges. Anyway,in Forex, particularly in eurusd, the situation didn't change much. Yesterday the pair was trading within the narrow range between 1.3515 and 1.3540. Earlier today (on the sale of Asian assets) the euro/dollar dropped to 1.3510, but soon it found support at the lows. Quite possibly, today we will again see a correction, which has become almost traditional for Fridays. Moreover, today there aren't any important macroeconomic statistics scheduled for release either in Europe or in the USA. The market has been farmed out to traders, who can try to speculate on the coming news about the plane crash and the two-sided accusations following it. On the one hand, it is logical to suppose increase in pressure on risky assets. However, the euro seems to be out of their camp. The US statistics, released yesterday, was dubious. We believe that the most important fact was another confirmation of strength of the labour market with the reduction of unemployment claims to 302K instead of the expected growth to 310K. In the after-recession period it has happened only twice – in May (298) and in April (302). The continuing claims are also in a confident downtrend and have already reached 2.507bln. Looking at the history of this indicator over the recent 25 years, the current rate of unemployment claims is close to the cyclic lows. It means that the market has stabilized around 300K as the CB found the current conditions satisfactory to start the cycle of toughening. 

GBP/USD

The British macroeconomic statistics weren't very telling, so the cable is again under the threat of profit-taking after the preceding active growth. Upon the whole the pair remains within the moderately descending range, if we disregard the short-term upsurge on Tuesday's inflation news. But proceeding from the supposition that all the currency's moves in the chart are of importance, we should note arrogant behaviour of the cable, which held out against the decline of the stock exchanges, successfully going above 1.71 this morning. Pay attention to 1.7115. Should the week be closed below this mark, it will be the second consecutive week of the cable's depreciation, which is able to intensify selling on Monday. 

USD/JPY

The Japanese government looks more and more self-reassured. The bank of japan Governor Kuroda pointed out in his speech that he was quite satisfied with the current rate of the Japanese currency. It means that we shouldn't expect new incentives. Now the yen's weakening will happen only as a result of the dollar's growth on speculations around the coming cycle of toughening. 

NZD/USD

The New Zealand Kiwi seems to have reached the short-term support. The heavy profit-taking, following the impressive rally in the currency, now looks finished. Bulls are picking up the cheapened currency, purchasing it close to 0.8650.