The US Dollar remained little changed and in very tight ranges ahead of what is a grand finale to the week with US GDP on Thursday and NFP on Friday. The latter data may have far reaching implications as the Fed will be closely watching in order to gauge the likelihood of rate hikes later this year. Trading was restrained in the EUR/USD pair as most sat on the sidelines ahead of the aforementioned data releases. The range was a slow 20 pips with a high near 1.5589 and a low near 1.5569. No amount of creative writing on my behalf can spice up the lack of movement in this pair over the past 10 hours...With most Euro Zone data gloomy at best; it seems that negative economic sentiment records are being toppled at least weekly. EUR/JPY hit a 168.56 high and looks real comfortable just below the 170.00 figure.
USD/JPY was lower this session, hitting a low near 107.95 as Japanese Industrial production fell short of expectations. It would seem by all indications that the Japanese economy is slowing. We've seen a high of 108.33 and a low of 107.70 within the past 24 hours, thus reaffirming the cautious market.
Down under, Australian Retail Sales was yet another disappointing number added to the list, but yet the Aussie Dollar hardly reacted. AUD/USD hit a low of .9411 before bouncing back to levels near 0.9450. The fear in Australia is that with the economy slowing there are rumblings that the RBA could follow the lead of the RBNZ and cut interest rates.
Keep in mind that the US economic data dominates the landscape for the rest of the week, but as soon as the NFP number is released talk will begin about next weeks ECB rate decision, which will be the topic of conversation for the FX markets until it happens.
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