Bernanke calls on banks to increase their capital buffers – markets don’t like it

EUR/USD

On Monday evening markets started to recoup the losses suffered on poor employment data from the US. And since chances of the monetary policy toughening in the US diminished the dollar began to decline. The payrolls themselves were minutely described in our yesterday’s review, so we are passing over to other news. This night in Atlanta Bernanke made a speech in which he mentioned about the necessity of bigger bank capital buffers. This statement was quite alarming for banks and has already led to heavy losses of their stocks. Yet, Bernanke was his usual self, i.e. quite gentle, as he made more…

The dollar keeps strengthening – be careful

EUR/USD

The euro decline, started after the release of the Fed meeting minutes, persisted for most part of the day yesterday. EUR/USD fell down to 1.31, though a couple of days ago it was high at 1.3350. Technically the euro/dollar is close to an important support level. The continuous slackness in the preceding days spilt over into the vigorous action. However, it seems to subside now on the reduced volumes before the holidays. It’s of interest that yesterday’s euro sales occurred on the upward revision of Services PMIs in the greater part of Europe. In March the Euro-zone final services PMI made more…

Fed’s cautiousness about further incentives triggers the dollar rally

EUR/USD

The Fed’s minutes published yesterday afternoon produced a dramatic influence on the market. They made it clear that the Fed is now less inclined to provide further incentives for the economy. Speculators immediately reacted to that, having started to buy dollars and sell risky assets and currencies. As a result, the single currency, for example, sank from 1,3340 to 1,3215 in an hour. During the Asian session sales continued, which brought the pair below 1,32. Exactly the soft Fed’s policy, which doesn’t fully fit the current circumstances, is called the impetus of the 30% rally in the stock markets since last more…

Are Gold and Aussie out of favour?

EUR/USD

Yesterday the US market remained in the mode of slight correction, which actually failed to produce any significant impact on the EUR/USD rate. At some point the single currency rose to the two-week high of 1.3280, but didn’t manage to consolidate at this level. Apparently, the markets needed a larger batch of news to decide on the further action. The only interesting statistics came in on the existing home sales. According to the data published by the National Association of Realtors, home sales fell by 0.9% in February to the annual pace of 4.59 million. However, last month sales jumped by more…

By fits and starts EUR’s moving up

EUR/USD

The single currency is moving by fits and starts. Apparently, big players prefer to hold back from systematical buying, and trading is now driven mainly by technical factors. Yesterday, just like on Friday, the euro/dollar spent the most part of the day in a narrow corridor. However, within the first two hours of the US session it leapt dramatically from 1.3150 to 1.3260 and then again resumed tracking sideways. The current Forex movement in EUR/USD can be compared to what we saw after the 1st LTRO auction. For a while the single currency was falling as a result of the interbank more…