Forex headlines for Sept 15, 2014:
- US Empire manufacturing index 27.54 vs 15.95 exp
- But employment subindex at 3.26 vs 13.64 prior
- August 2014 US industrial production -0.1% vs 0.3% exp
- August 2014 Canadian existing home sales 1.8% vs 0.8 prior
- Cameron: BOE would no longer set Scottish interest rates
- Chinese Premier Li says they will increase import volumes
- France’s Hollande says ECB action has weakened the euro
- US 10-year yields down 2.5 bps to 2.59%
- WTI crude oil up 55-cents to $92.82
- Gold up $3 to $1233
- S&P 500 down 1 point to 1985
- CAD leads, CHF lags
Today was the warm-up for a big week. It felt like a day dominated by some positioning moves ahead of the Fed, Scottish referendum and some other big upcoming events. It was hard to find any conviction and virtually every trade was withing the range of the previous day(s).
EUR/USD hit a session low of 1.2909 early in US trading but that exactly matched Friday’s low and formed a double-bottom that bounced up to 1.2951 with most of the gains coming after the industrial production data. From there it was a narrowing chop in the 1.2930/50 range and we finish right in the middle.
USD/JPY took a hit on the IP data as well and quickly fell to 107.01 from 107.25 on the numbers. for the dollar to fall so far on a second-tied indicator like industrial production shows that USD longs are feeling a bit jittery. In any case, the dip buyers were there again and the pair bounced to 107.25 before drifting to 107.17.
Cable was in a slow grind lower after a pop in early European trading. Most of the damage was done in Asia. Last at 1.6233
The mover in the session was USD/CAD as it repeatedly failed to break 1.11 in European trading and then embarked on a long slide down to 1.1035. The good news is that the low today was higher than Friday’s low and that’s often a sign that it’s time to buy a dip.
The Aussie was the big story in Asia/Europe as it broke through 0.9000 but it rebounded as high as 0.9049 in US trading. Bit of a wedge forming at the moment.
