Impudent bulls and bears

EUR/USD

Yesterday bulls and bears were again measuring their strength against each other, trying to budge EURUSD. Either the parties were equally strong or they were not willing to continue the fight, but after a steep drop the pair in a while returned to the previous levels. Impertinence of bears showed itself when they intensified their pressure on the euro right after the release of relatively good news from Germany. The Ifo statistics indicated growth of the Business Climate Index to the highest level over the last 16 months and, therefore, exceeded expectations. In August the index has risen to 107.5 against more…

The Fed is ready for the stimulus rollback

EUR/USD

Those, expecting that the FOMC’s minutes would make things clearer, must have been utterly disappointed yesterday. The minutes didn’t contain any obvious signals of the stimulus rollback in September. The members of the Committee have different views on the future of the Fed’s policy. We should understand that the meeting was held before the release of August’s employment statistics, which have strengthened the beliefs that the economy  needs support less and less.  The improvement in unemployment claims lets market participants hope that the Fed’s members, which have doubted better economic growth, will become more confident about it in mid September. Despite more…

USD is up against the developing currencies and Aussie

EUR/USD

As could be expected, trading crossed the bounds of the narrow range, thus arousing strong volatility in the currency market without any particular reason. The euro purchases had led the pair from 1.3320 to 1.3450 by the beginning of the active US session.  Thus, the pair entered the area of half-year highs, going beyond the peak of June 19, which made 1.3420. It is also remarkable that this movement was not immediately followed by a retracement. Up to now trading is held above 1.34, which speaks about strength of the bulls and inspires hope for further growth. Anyway, the picture may more…

EUR got stuck in the corridor

EUR/USD

In the absence of any significant news trading in the markets is usually nervous and technical levels of support and resistance become particularly important for traders. Since neither Europe nor the USA didn’t publish any important statistics yesterday and are not going to release any today, the market, being left to itself, is drifting in the corridor of 1.3300-1.3370. This range can’t be called very narrow, but note that since the end of Thursday the market has jerked to its bounds and stayed there for a while, preferring to return to the area between 1.3325 and 1.3355. As there are no more…

Non-US assets are getting more popular

EUR/USD

The second half-year in the markets will apparently be different from the first one. Earlier this year we observed acceleration of the dollar together with the growth of the US stock markets. Now it seems that despite the time for the Fed to  start the stimulus rollback is getting nearer, the USD is depreciating against most of its rivals and the US exchanges lack buyers. Aren’t the US assets attractive when the Fed is so close to policy toughening? They ARE attractive, but not against oversold EU assets. According to an old observation, economic improvement in the USA is often half more…