The simple answer is probably not.
There has been much speculation on these pages, and elsewhere, over the impact these and other NFP figures are having on the US Fed’s decision to taper but are we any closer to knowing the reality of such an event? December? January? June?
And will we or the Fed be any the wiser at 13.31 gmt today?
Bernanke & Co ( inc new chairgirl Yellen) are caught between a rock and a hard place as we know and seem in no rush to apply the brakes to what is, at best, a fragile recovery with mixed data despite yesterday’s headline Q3 GDP revision.
And to be honest why should we keep speculating ? Call me old-fashioned, or just old ( again! ) but why not just trade what you see?
Yesterday was a classic example as traders got sucked into short euro possies then sat there complaining there was no rationale to the market and watched EURUSD go 120 pips higher triggering a few stops along the way with EURGBP hot on its trail.
GBPUSD lived up to its offered tone of the past 24-48 hours and showed no sign of rallying which appeared to confuse many out there. But why should it have done ? We are long past the simple correlation of all pairs following a weakUSD/strongUSD data release, and that scenario will continue for some time to come.
Cross-play crossfire is ever more evident and heavily traded which confuses the price action on base pairs but this is nothing new.
So for the short to medium term traders it’s time to put away those crystal balls ( again) as well as your frequently myopic/stubborn view, and just trade what you see.
You know it makes sense. Irrational has always been the new rational in these markets and if you didn’t already know that this wonderful world of forex is fickle as fek then just chew on the fact that of the USD 5.3+ trln daily turnover at least 96% is speculative trading.
Flow, not rationale or data, is king.
Good luck one and all, and have a great week-end
