Forex news for US trading on September 24, 2015:

  • US durable goods orders Aug -2.0% vs -2.3% exp
  • US initial jobless claims 267k vs 271k exp
  • August 2015 US new home sales 0.552m vs 0.515m exp m/m
  • August 2015 French total jobseekers 3571.6k vs 3552.3k exp
  • Norway cuts interest rates by 0.25% to 0.75%
  • Hungary lowers interest rate corridor down by 25bps
  • ECB's Jazbec: Still a long way before any measures beyond QE will be discussed
  • ECB's Praet: Keeping policy too accommodative for too long risky
  • Wait for December before discussing QE boost says ECB's Vasiliauskas
  • September 2015 US KC Fed manufacturing index +1 vs -16 prior
  • Atlanta Fed's GDP indicator drops Q3 GDP to 1.4% from 1.5%
  • Goldman Sachs lowers US Q3 GDP estimate to 2.1%, was 2.2%
  • Gold up $22 to $1152
  • WTI crude up 58-cents to $45.05
  • US 10-year yields down 2.5 bps to 2.13%
  • S&P 500 down 8 points to 1929
  • NZD leads, GBP lags

The euro story was a second day of gains for the euro. It rallied to 1.1296 from 1.1200 in fairly short order at the start of US trading but offers at 1.1300 stalled the advance. A few headlines hit but they weren't a factor. Instead, as sentiment improved the euro slipped and fell to 1.1229.

Cable looks to be in a tough place. Even a general trend to sell the US dollar didn't give it much of a lift after four days of large declines. The low came early in the day at 1.5200, suggesting bids at the figure. It managed to reverse and hit a session high into the London fix as it rode to 1.5289. But there were no buyers as it rose above the European highs and that's a negative sign. As the day wore on, cable sagged back to 1.5240.

USD/JPY challenged last week's low but fell a dozen pips short. The lows of the day were below 119.25 as the stock market sagged but as sentiment stabilized the US dollar took advantage of broad yen cross buying, especially AUD/JPY and CAD/JPY.

The commodity currencies finally ended successive days of declines but it didn't start out that way. At the beginning of US trading both were down substantially. USD/CAD hit a fresh 11-year high at 1.3417 as oil fell below $44.

The Australian dollar came to within 50 pips of breaking the August low in what would have been the fifth day of losses but it made a comeback from 0.6940. In truth, it's tough to make a multi-year low after six days of declines. The market usually needs to consolidate and regroup before making the big push. AUD/USD rebounded to 0.7035 before a 30-pip fall on Yellen.