Forex trading headlines for the European session 3 June 2013

  • Japanese vehicle sales -7.3% from +2.0% prior. Toyota China May sales up 0.3% y/y but down 8.6% Jan-May
  • French fin minister Moscovici says banks will have to detail their activities by country
  • Australian May commodity price index 87.0 vs 86.2 prior
  • French minister for industry says slightly weaker euro is needed
  • European manufacturing PMI’s beeat expectations across tha board.
  • Spanish May PMI 48.1 vs 45.5 exp
  • Swiss May PMI 52.2 vs 50.9 exp
  • Italian May PMI 47.3 vs 46.2 exp
  • French May PMI 46.4 vs 45.5 exp 13 month high
  • German May PMI 49.4 vs 49.0 exp highest since Feb
  • EZ May PMI 48.3 vs 47.8 exp 15 month high
  • UK May PMI 51.3 vs 50.2 exp. Orders jump to 53.7 from 51.4 highest since March 2011
  • BOE says net bank lending fell £300m in Q1. BOE’s Fisher says lending volumes will pick up through 2013
  • Nikkei closes down 512 points or 3.72% to 13261.82, down 2681 points in 8 days. JGB yields fall to 0.795% lows before rebounding back into 0.80%

We eased into the new week with all the action in the yen as the Nikkei did it’s late show dive.

While other currency pairs struggled to wake yen pairs fell in tandem with the Nikkei and JGB yields.

USD/JPY eased down from overnight highs at 100.65/70 all the way through 100.50. Decent buying at 100.30 held up for a while but a late rug pull in the Nikkei had the same effect on the currency and we blitzed bids all the way down to 100.03. The big ton remains intact for now.

GBP & EUR/JPY fell 60 odd pips over the same time while their USD cousins stayed moderately flat but with a hint of a bid tone.

When Europe finally got to it’s desk the European dollar pairs pushed up.

GBP/USD led the way breaking through resistance at 1.5240 to highs of 1.5260

We were well bid from the raft of EU PMI data and a very strong read from the UK PMI shot us to 1.5289. The market had got a little overexcited and couldn’t maintain the gains and we now trade at 1.5258

EUR/USD tagged along behind hitting 1.3030 from 1.3010. The first of the positive PMI’s hit the screens and it was north from there but with not much gusto. We managed a pop to 1.3043 after the German release but ran out of steam pretty quickly and are now back at the 1.3010 level.

AUD/USD remains fairly well bid also and has continued it’s gap up open putting in around 50 pips worth of gain during the session