Forex trading headlines from the European morning session 6 May
News:
- RBA – NO CHANGE to cash rate
- RBA accompanying statement: Says exchange rate remains high by historical standards
- OECD cuts 2014 global growth forecast to 3.4% from 3.6% prior
- Japan’s Abe says vitality of Japanese economy has come back
- G7 ministers agree to go shopping elsewhere for gas
- ECB says SSM governance procedures have been mostly completed
- UBS reports Q1 net profit of CHF 1.054 bln vs CHF 905 mln exp
Data:
- April UK Markit/CIPS services PMI 58.7 vs 57.6 exp
- Eurozone Markit services PMI April 53.1 vs 53.1 exp
- April EU Markit services PMI 54.5 vs 53.5 prior
- German Markit services PMI April 54.7 vs 55.00 exp
- French Markit services PMI April 50.4 vs 50.3 exp
- Eurozone retail sales March m/m +0.3 % vs -0.2% exp
- Italian Markit services PMI April 51.1 vs 50.4 exp
- Spain Markit services April PMI 56.5 vs 54.0 prev
- Irish Markit services PMI April 61.9 vs 60.7 prev
- Shanghai Composite Index closes up 0.03% at 2028.04
After a period of uncertainty and tight ranges we’ve had a session that’s seen some sharp moves and it’s the US $ that’s borne the brunt of the attack continuing the move that started after the post-NFP greenback rally.
After a quiet start we saw GBPUSD launch a bid to get back above 1.6900 and then EURUSD finally broke through 1.3900 to trigger stops to 1.3915 with GBPUSD needing no excuse to rally further to 1.6925.
Mixed, but generally better, final Eurozone services PMI data saw EURUSD up to 1.3930 before retreating t0 1.3920 but then came the UK reading and we were finally through the 1.6950 barrier having been well defended immediately before and after the release.
We’ve since been up to 1.6978 and 1.3844 as the USD sellers prevail with USDJPY down to 101.70 after holding up initially on yen-pair demand. USDCHF has posted 0.8728 lows having chewed through the decent bids at 0.8740-50
AUDUSD had fallen back to 0.9270 after posting 0.9318 after the RBA decision but also needed no excuse to climb back up and we’ve now taken out the strong resistance at 0.9320-30 to post 0.9352 so far. NZDUSD continues to rampage its way higher and has rallied to 0.8778 from 0.8730 while USDCAD has continued its move lower from 1.0955 to 1.0923.
The start of a new, significant, move ? Or the forcing of stops at key levels adding to the momentum we first saw in Friday’s reversal? Certainly difficult to back against further moves at the moment but we can’t get carried away just yet.
