Forex news from the European morning trading session 16 December 2014
News:
- Nabiullina says they raised key interest rate to limit negative effects of rouble falls
- Nabiullina says rouble is cheap by all fundamental indicators
- The Russian central bank is swiftly losing the war as ruble gets slaughtered
- The volatile moves are not exclusive to Russia as emerging markets are also getting caned against USD
- Kremlin declines to comment on interest rate rise
- Bank of England tests show UK banks could continue to serve purpose even after severe stress
- Carney says main stability risks in UK for past 18 months were domestic
- BOE’s Cunliffe says UK housing market still biggest stability risk
- German ZEW says we are not yet in a situation of deflation fears
- Bundesbank’s Weidmann sees a whole row of economic reasons against QE
Data:
- UK CPI Nov mm -0.3% vs 0.0% exp
- German ZEW economic sentiment 10.0 vs 5.0 exp
- Eurozone Markit mftg PMI Dec flash 50.8 vs 50.5 exp
- Eurozone trade balance Oct SA EUR +19.4bln vs +18.4bln exp
- German Markit mftg PMI Dec flash 51.2 vs 50.3 exp
- French Markit mftg PMI Dec flash 47.9 vs 48.6 exp
- Shanghai Composite Index closes at highest levels since April 2011
- Nikkei 225 closes down -2.01% at 16,755.32
A crazy session dominated by a further collapse in the rouble and spilling over into other emerging markets as well as global equities and gold
The move by the Russian central bank to hike rates to 17% had a calming effect for only a very short while with USDRUB trading 58-63 before it took off to outer space and so far posting highs of 79.17. Safe haven flow has seen USDJPY down to 115.57 from 117.40 and currently back to 116.20 with USDCHF down to 0.9553 from 0.9659
GBPUSD had a wobble down to 1.5610 from 1.5655 on softer headline UK CPI but we’ve since seen 1.5786 on the USD selling but it’s not been one-way traffic by any means. EURUSD has been up to 1.2570 from 1.2434 lows while EURGBP has been to 0.8007 and back to 0.7952 in blink and you miss it price action
AUDUSD, NZDUSD and USDCAD all had quieter mornings by comparison caught in crossplay crossfire but with each core pair having its own moment.
Far too much volatility to describe in more detail. Just pull yourself up an intraday chart of your ccy pair and take a look.
We said markets would be getting thinner and more dangerous and today has taken no prisoners