Forex headlines for December 30, 2013:
- US November pending home sales +0.2% vs +1.0% expected
- Second suicide bomb hits Russia
- Canadian consumer confidence hits highest since early 2011
- CFTC: Fresh highs in bets against the yen
- Month-end fixings could weigh on USD – Barclays
- Greece won’t need a new bailout agreement says PM Samaras
- Spain’s tax revenue up 3.7%
- Dallas Fed manufacturing output index Dec +7.1 vs +16.9 prior
- S&P 500 down 0.3 points to 1841
- WTI crude down $1.05 to $99.27
- Gold down $17 to $1196
- NZD and CAD leads, USD lags
The moves in the market were fairly solid. That’s been the theme in holiday trading this year as the market has been anything but quiet. The general flow was anti-USD, likely on month-end flows.
EUR/USD began to rise from 1.3730 in Europe and peaked at the European close, hitting 1.3819 in a long, steady move. After Europe shut down, it drifted back to 1.3797. Watch the close as the highest close this year came in October at 1.3802.
USD/JPY ran into repeated selling in early Europe at 105.40 and Ryan put on a little short at 105.35 and was rewarded with a slid down slightly below 105 before a pop back to 105.09.
Cable wraps up the day at 1.6500 as it piggybacked on the US dollar selling to move as high as 1.6533 from 1.6464 — a 70 pip move. That’s a solid bit of volatility for a quiet day. After touching the highs at the London fix, it’s been a slow slide lower.
The Canadian dollar was the star of the session as USD/CAD slipped, in fairly quick fashion, down to 1.0640 from 1.0710. The pair was driven higher by flows on Friday and it looked like flows again today. The rest of the commodity bloc made a similar move with AUD/USD cresting at 0.8930. The rise climbed just above Friday’s high but there was no follow through, last at 0.8906.
Gold put a stamp on a dismal year with yet another fall, erasing the mild optimism last week. We close near the lows of the day at $1196.
