USD eases pressure

EUR/USD

Last week ended with a slight appreciation of the dollar. But this growth wasn’t enough to make up the losses, suffered earlier that week because of absence of a sound reason. This week players seem to be willing to continue locking in profits in the US assets. The dollar and stock indices are falling simultaneously. It is remarkable that S&P 500 has gone below the local low of August and is at risk of getting to the highs of early March – mid May. These levels (near 1870) can become quite a good support just the same way they served as more…

FOMC fears growth of USD

EUR/USD

The Fed’s minutes showed that FOMC is in a more peaceful mood than expected. As seen from the comments, published yesterday closer to the end of the US session, the Committee feared that changes in the comments would be taken in the wrong way by the market. As you remember, in September many expected that FOMC wouldn’t mention that the rates would stay low for ‘a considerable time’ any more. The forecasts contain fears that the slowdown of the global growth can affect the closeness of the US monetary policy tightening as slower growth results in the increased demand for the more…

AUD and JPY are temporarily stronger than USD

EUR/USD

Neither bulls nor bears managed to push the market out of the existing trading range. The slowdown of growth and further short-term weakness of the single currency dropped the pair only to 1.2584. And though hardly anyone doubts the dollar’s ability to continue growth, traders are simply too weak for such a step. For the next attack they need to store more liquidity. And this happens when the rate floats or consolidates. The example of this can be the period from the beginning of August till its middle. At that time after the consolidation within 1.3350-1.3400 the pair tumbled down below more…

The payrolls shook 1.25 in EURUSD and pushed GBPUSD below 1.60

EUR/USD

The single currency tested 1.2500 on Friday. This decline was caused by the perfect US employment statistics. The unemployment rate decreased from 6.1% to 5.9% and the number of jobs grew by 248K instead of the expected 210. Besides, the August statistics were revised up from 142 to 180. The average weekly hours has also slightly increased (from 34.5 to 34.6). But in the meantime, the average hourly earnings lost 1%, which in a way contradicts the classic situation with the tight employment market. It’s also no good that the participation rate has again fallen. In September it made 62.7 against more…

Hit the bottom?

EUR/USD

Yesterday bulls managed to keep the pair from hitting new lows. It was actively purchased below 1.2590. Earlier today we saw some hints at profit-squeeze in USD, which helped to push the pair to 1.2670. Yet, the movement doesn’t look very steady in expectation of details on the ABS programme. Again it was interesting to see that the news about slower business activity didn’t push the pair to new lows. On the contrary, the latter slides down much easier when there isn’t any obvious reason. Yesterday’s data on the German Manufacturing PMI in September were revised from 50.3 down to 49.9 more…