EUR/usd
The Greeks haven't agreed on the tougher austerity programme yet. The European leaders, in their turn, are increasing their pressure on the country, urging it to carry out the expenditure cuts sooner. Yesterday the euro had been falling until it reached 1.3030, but then another wave of stop-orders pulled the pair back above 1.31. It happened on the news that the government agreed to dismiss 15000 public sector workers. But it is not enough, and today the debates will be carried out against the background of large-scale strikes. Since the events are long-term, traders currently have a great deal of short positions, which does not allow the pair to fall lower in the absence of really important news, like, for instance, sharp easing of the monetary policy by the ECB or the uncontrollable default in Greece. It's really interesting that the number of long dollar positions has been decreasing in the last few weeks. This has been mainly due to the recovery of the demand for risky assets in the global markets. Thus, it's possible to say now that at present the single currency is mainly moving on its own regional news and is less than usual dependent on risk demand fluctuations and carry-trade.
GBP/USD
The news, coming from Britain since the beginning of the week, has been quite positive, but unfortunately only with respect to expectations and the previous poor performance. Well, we have already spoken about the minimal improvement in employee sentiment, estimated by Lloyds. Later that day Halifax announced that housing prices grew by 0.6% in January, however that fact actually didn't in the least affect the price decline from -1.3 % to -1.8% against the previous year. Yet these figures had been expected to be even worse. The BRC Retail Sales Monitor index, published overnight, indicated that sales in January fell by 0.3% against the previous year, though the index had been forecast to demonstrate a sharper decline (-0.8%). Despite the fact that such statistics can give some support in the first minutes after their publication, they are unlikely to excite a stable buying interest. We look forward to the meeting of the Bank of England's MPC on Thursday. Analysts are expecting that it will have the QE extension by £50-75 billion as its result, which may provoke the sterling speculative sales.
USD/JPY
The Japanese yen is trading near the same levels as a day ago. Yesterday on the dollar weakening at the end of the day the pair fell below 76.50, but the messages about the size of intervention carried out by the Ministry of Finance and the bank of japan in early November boosted the rate growth. Earlier it was reported that ¥8.07 trillion was sold on October 31, and other ¥1.02 trln a few days later. But today's message has indicated the purchase of other ¥1 trln ($ 13 billion) in the following few days. Let us remind that then USD/JPY rose from 75.60 to 79.50, but later continued to decline, having dropped to 76 by the end of January.
AUD/USD
The Australian central bank surprised most market participants, having left the base interest rate unchanged at 4.25%. Many expected to see new cuts as continuation of the series started in November. The RBA's head Stevens stated that interest rates on loans in the country are currently close to their average historical levels, and inflation – to its target levels. This surprising result affected the Australian stock market and made the aussie grow to 1.08. It seems that we were wrong and it is still possible to get another little blow into this bubble.
