• EU’s Rehn: “We are not yet out of the woods with Greece” Important that EU next week comes to more specific conclusion on Greek aid
  • ECB’s Draghi: Euro zone needs stronger budget rules, too soon to say what. Greece moving in right direction but needs to see results. Greeks understand need to pay a political price for debt crisis
  • BOE’s Sentance: Some risk of double dip recession in UK, but it is not a central forecast
  • Metron Analysis Poll for Eleftheros Typos (newspaper): Shows 66.5% believe country’s fiscal crisis will last more than 2 years. 72% think Greece will need aid from EU
  • EU’s Barroso: EU member states, including Germany, have said they ready to help Greece if needed
  • Russia CBank shifts floating rouble band to 33.95 vs basket
  • Canadian core inflation comes in at 2.1% in February, above 2% central bank target

EUR/USD started around 1.3620 and did little for a fair amount of time before suddenly dipping below 1.3600. It wasn’t too clear whether there was any particular trigger, but obviously Greece concerns are never far from the surface. EU’s Rehn came out opining that the EU is not out of the woods with Greece, which hardly helped and we’ve been all the way down to 1.3552 so far. Talk of stops just below 1.3550 and again through 1.3530. We received earlier reports of decent bid interest on EBS at 1.3555/60, which seem to have been pretty accurate.

Cable down at 1.5150 from early 1.5240. The pairing was under pressure right from the get-go, as wires carried comments made by BOE’s Sentance raising the spectre of a possible double-dip recession in the UK. Stops were tripped through 1.5200 and 1.5150 on way to session low 1.5128 before some recovery.

USD/JPY as has become normal did little and at 90.45 is effectively unchanged on the day. Buy orders tipped at 90.00/20, sell orders 90.80/00.

EUR/CHF came under renewed pressure. Started around 1.4400, fell quickly early. Sell off stalled a little just ahead of 1.4350 amid talk of barrier option interest lying at said level. But eventually the level gave out, tripping stops just below on way to session low 1.4320. Those that still believe SNB might turn up to intervene if swissy strengthening gets too rapid seem to have 1.4300 as a likely level for action and we’ve rallied back to 1.4345.

USD/CAD down at 1.0115 from early 1.0170. The move came with Canadian core inflation rising to 2.1% in February, above central bank’s target level, raising speculation of an early rate hike.