Eurozone unemployment out today

The dollar once again strengthened against the Euro and the yen as the Irish bailout announcement did not clear the concerns on the situation. US equities dropped lower as well.

The Euro traded to a high of 1.3302 before turning lower during the European session, taking out stops and option barriers at 1.3100.

Aussie and Sterling followed lower on the back of the Euro.

I guess the trend is still down with a dollar bull.

Data Today

German Unemployment rate – 8.55am GMT

Eurozone Unemployment rate – 10am GMT

US S&P/Case Shiller Home price index – 2pm GMT

US consumer confidence – 3pm GMT

Chicago PMI – 2.45pm GMT 

Ireland package finalized

Dollar bulls must be popping bottles of champagne at the moment considering what’s been happening since last week.

On Sunday, Eurozone finance ministers approved an 85bn pound financial rescue package for Ireland, although 17.5bn of it will come from Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund and other domestic cash resources.

The Euro got a boost this morning after the announcement and traded up to 1.3355, but this was short-lived and the Euro has come off since then.

The Aussie has been following the Euro lead, and has also released worse than expected data. The Q3 business inventories and company profits came in a lot worse.

Data Today:

UK net consumer credit – 7.30am GMT

UK mortgage approvals – 7.30am GMT

Eurozone consumer confidence – 10am GMT

Eurozone industrial confidence – 10am GMT

Eurozone service confidence – 10am GMT

Eurozone business climate indicator – 10am GMT

Looks like another quiet day. Happy Thanksgiving!

Extremely quiet markets because of the thanksgiving holiday. I don’t think there will be much happening today as well, considering not much data coming out today.

Dollar yen though looks like it’s touched a resistance level at 83.80. I would look into selling here.

Data today:

German Import Price index - 7am GMT

Eurozone M3 - 9am GMT

range trades perhaps?

Today we still seem to have risk aversion going on and a stronger dollar on the whole.

US new home sales dropped down to 283k. US durable goods came off worse, and the university of Michigan confidence index rose to 71.6.

S&P downgraded Ireland to A from AA-, we saw the Euro crash below 1.3300 yesterday.

UK GDP came in line to consensus at 2.8% y/y. looks like cable may be in a tight range.

Aussie bounced up after talks that Russia will be increasing Aussie in their reserves.

There isn’t any serious data out today, so looks like we’ll still be playing the trend. I do think markets will be quiet today, since it is thanksgiving and US is not going to be open.

Today may just be a good day to practice your range trading strategies.

Dollar bulls on a sprint!

Talk about dollar bulls sprinting!!

US GDP came out stronger at 2.5%. Seemed like lots went down yesterday. North Korea shelling South Korea saw the start of the movement down, for many of the currency pairs, especially dollar-yen.

Euro on the other end traded to a low of 1.3359, after S&P cut Ireland’s rating to A.

It just seemed like yesterday, that everything was going in favor for the USD. Irish troubles and the Korean troubles brought out more risk aversion and pushed the dollar higher. On top of that the US GDP came out better than expected.

I still think we’ll be seeing more risk aversion happening, so I would still look to sell on rallies on the Euro.

Data Today:

German IFO business climate – 9am GMT

German IFO expectations – 9am GMT

UK GDP – 9.30am GMT

US durable goods order – 1.30pm GMT

University of Michigan confidence – 2.55pm GMT

US new home sales – 3pm GMT

US house price purchase index – 3pm GMT

risk aversion game play

Looks like risk aversion is the game play for today.

Dollar, yen and the suissy seem to be the safe-haven currencies for the day.

Concerns of a possible Irish downgrade and uncertainty seems to still be the topic on the Eurofront. The PIGS are back into the main picture with possible risk in the other countries, that sum up the PIGS.

Today Japan is on a holiday, so looks like yen will be in a tight range today during tokyo session, and possibly aussie as well. I’d still today look into playing Euro and sterling. Sell Euro on rallies, and also sterling.

I would though be careful during the U.S session as we have some big data coming out later today.

Data Today:

German GDP – 7am GMT

German GFK consumer confidence survey – 7am GMT

German PMI manufacturing – 8am GMT

Eurozone PMI manufacturing – 9am GMT

US Q3 GDP – 1.30pm GMT

US existing home sales – 3pm GMT

US FOMC meeting minutes – 7pm GMT

Watch out for the Euro today

So much going on this morning. China central bank has raised their reserve requirement by 50bp effective on November 29^th.

At the same time, Irish PM Cowen has applied for a bailout plan of about 80 to 90 bn Euro. This gave a boost to the Euro which opened 40 pips higher.

Aussie recovered its Friday’s losses but may just get capped out due to fear of China raising rates.

Not much coming out today on the data front, so I would keep a close watch on the Euro and the Aussie today. Looking to Buy Euro, as I do think markets will push it higher today.

Data Today:

Eurozone consumer confidence - 8.30am GMT

Are we seeing a solution for the Irish problem?

It seems like the Irish story may be reaching a conclusion. Governor Honohan became the first Irish policymaker to declare that the country would apply for aid. The package will be in the form of a joint IMF/EU loan that will “run into the tens of billions of Euro with an interest rate of 5%”. We’ve been seeing a stronger Euro this morning.

The US jobless claims matched the consensus at 439K, whereas the US leading indicators increased by 0.5%. I think yesterday’s play was more towards the news coming from Europe than the data coming out of the U.S.  For today I think the dollar may just weaken a little especially compared to the Euro.

Data Today:

German PPI – 7am GMT

Irish story still the main focus!

It’s honestly that time of the year where the holiday mode and spirit kicks in. Sometimes, it’s just difficult to get into the market in-between work.

Euro I think there is definitely on a downward trend medium term (daily chart). But there is quite a bit of volatility in price-movement on an intra-day basis. We still need to watch for the Irish story to see where spot moves today.

Sterling on the other hand isn’t really moving as much as Euro, so I’m slightly neutral here and would like to see a clear trend before I enter trend oriented positions.

Aussie fundamentally should be bullish, but because of the dollar strength and risk aversion happening at the moment, it has definitely come down quite a bit. But I’d still look to buy on dips here.

Data Today

UK public finances – 8.30am GMT

US initial jobless claims – 1.30pm GMT

US leading indicators – 3pm GMT

Dollar bulls pushing against the Euro and Aussie

Whoa! Talk about some insane movements! Looks like dollar bulls have finally attacked the market!

Seems like all this talks between the US and China on foreign exchange policies is showing its effects on the markets.

According to Geithner, upward pressure on the yuan will end up in higher inflation and asset prices if the currency won’t move. He also states that China will be more confident in allowing the yuan to rise if competitor’s currencies rise too.

Euro continues its way down and breaks the strong support of 1.3650! Seems like all the concerns over the Eurozone sovereign risk is at hand. Yields on 10 year irish bonds continue to rise over comparable german debt.

On the otherhand Sterling still held up strong, due to the QE being priced out following BOE inflation report. But we have to watch how UK data comes out in the coming weak as it comes out worse, QE may end up being priced in again.

Data Today:

German GDP – 7am GMT

Eurozone GDP – 10am GMT

Eurozone industrial production – 10am GMT

University of Michigan confidence – 2.55pm GMT

is there a trend change in the Euro?

Euro seems to be in a bit of a fix at the moment. Rising credit spreads on Irish debt and German data coming in mixed last night with a fall in industrial production buy an increase in exports. We saw the Euro come off quite a bit down to just below 1.3850.

Some data out tonight that could bring some movement into the other pairs.

Data today:

UK manufacturing production – 9.30am GMT

UK industrial production – 9.30am GMT

UK trade balance – 9.30am GMT

German CPI – 7am GMT

US wholesale inventories – 3pm GMT

Some profit taking on the Euro this morning.

I was pretty much out of the market on Thursday and Friday as it was a public holiday, but wow markets did do quite some movement.

On Friday, NFP came in better than expected at 151K which saw a sell-off in the Euro and Yen against the USD. US unemployment rate remained at 9.6%.

It does seem as some profit taking is happening this morning as there is a sell-off happening on the Euro.

I’m not sure which direction markets going to head. It’s a little too high to be buying, and a little risky to be selling. I guess the best thing to do right now is just wait and watch until you see a trade coming.

Here’s the data to look out for today. It does seem to be another heavy data week, so high volatility potential this week as well.

Data Today

Euro Sentix index – 9.30am GMT

German industrial production – 11am GMT

still have ECB and BOE rates tonite

Finally the big FOMC meeting is over and the craziness of the markets last night have now consolidated.

So what exactly happened?

Fed announced the next round of QE2 of a purchase of $600 bn of long-term treasuries by the end of Q2 2011. There were no real changes of growth or inflation risk and it was this disappointment that drove the policy change.

US October ISM non-manufacturing came in better than expected at 54.3 vs consensus 53.5. The USD September factory orders were also above expectations at +2.1% vs consensus 1.6%.

We saw the Aussie, Euro and sterling climb up last night. Will have to watch out though for Europe open and today’s data to figure out where the market is heading.

Data today:

German PMI services – 9am GMT

Eurozone PPI – 10am GMT

European central bank rate decision – 12.45pm GMT

Bank of England Annouces rates and asset purchase rate – 12pm GMT

US initial jobless claims – 12.30pm

RBA increases rates!

Last night we saw the US October ISM manufacturing improve to 56.9 from 54.4 and the US September construction spending rose as well to 0.5%.

Concerns on the Irish front has investors worried and the UK manufacturing PMI was slightly better overnight which helped push the EURGBP lower.

Aussie awaits the RBA decision today, which is expected to remain the same. Ok Shocking!! RBA increased the rates by 25bps! In a span of 5 minutes AUD/USD rose 100 points!! Almost there to parity, keep a watch on this pair!

Data Today:

Reserve Bank of Australia cash target – 3.30 am GMT

German PMI Manufacturing – 9am GMT

Eurozone PMI Manufacturing – 9am GMT

UK PMI construction – 9.30am GMT

US mid term election

End of a Volatile month and lots of US data this week

It’s the first week of November and got to say October was an extremely volatile month. Are we going to see another volatile month?

Well let’s see first what went down at the end of last week.

US real GDP came out as expected and the Chicago PMI rise to 60.6 well above the consensus 58.0.

But we saw the dollar weaken against most of the currencies as investors looked ahead to the FOMC decision on November 3^rd. A lot of data coming out of the US this week, so keep a look out and play carefully on the dollar.

Sterling strengthened further on Friday with the markets covering back more shorts before the MPC meeting on Thursday.

Data Today:

UK PMI manufacturing – 930am GMT

US ISM manufacturing – 2pm GMT

US personal Income – 12.30pm GMT

US personal Spending – 12.30pm GMT

US construction Spending – 2pm GMT