- Moody’s: Portugal on review for possible downgrade. Review to take up to 3 months.
- German January Gfk consumer confidence 5.4, down from 5.5 in December and lower than median forecast of 5.7
- Vince Cable: I could bring down the government
- UK November PSNB 22.774 bln, worse than median forecast 17.0 bln. PSNCR 16.811 bln, worse than median forecast 14.0 bln
- ECB’s Stark: All our operations are motivated by monetary policy and will be
- BOJ’s Shirakawa: Rise in Japan long-term rate largely driven by US treasury yield rise
- Spain’s EconMin Salgado: Not going to have problem with debt financing next year
- Spain sells 3.0 bln 3-month bills and 0.88 bln 6-month bills
Given the proximity of Christmas this morning’s session wasn’t as bad as one might have feared. Enough action to keep us awake, if only just.
EUR/USD sits at 1.3155, down marginally from an early 1.3175. The pairing managed to rally early, but sell orders around 1.3200 proved enough to cap the upside. Moody’s announcement that it has put Portugal on review for possible downgrade prompted a fairly sharp sell-off, but nothing too major and we remain ostensibly narrow rangebound.
200 dma lies at 1.3098, stops below there. Buy stops seen through 1.3210.
Cable and sterling in general have had a poor day so far. Cable down at 1.5485 from early 1.5540, EUR/GBP up at .8495 from around .8475. Vince Cable’s assertion that he could bring down the coalition government (see above) hardly helped. But it was the crappy public finance data which really did the damage. Cable stood around 1.5535 just ahead of the release and hasn’t recovered.
USD/JPY solid as a rock at 83.65. If it moved then I missed it. Not that I was paying an awful lot of attention. Overnight we had murmurings of Kampo interest in the 83.50’s and that has helped lend tenuous support. Stops seen through 83.40.
