Forex news from the European trading session - 8 January 2018
Economic data:
- Eurozone November retail sales m/m +1.5% vs +1.3% expected
- Eurozone December consumer confidence +0.5 vs +0.5 prelim
- Eurozone January investor confidence 32.9 vs 31.3 expected
- SNB total sight deposits w.e. 5 Jan CHF 572.8bn vs CHF 573.2bn prior
- UK Dec Halifax house price index m/m -0.6% vs +0.2% expected
- Switzerland December CPI m/m 0.0% vs -0.1% expected
- Germany November factory orders m/m -0.4% vs 0.0% expected
- Changes to release of Germany economic data
- Australia December foreign reserves AUD 85.4bn vs AUD 85.8bn prior
Central banks/Government:
- British Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire resigns
- UK PM spokesman: May has been clear in her determination to secure Brexit deal
- South Korea's regulator carrying out inspections on banks' handling of virtual currency trading accounts
- More on the Bank of Korea intervention from earlier today
- More on the virtual currency accounts' investigation by South Korea's regulator
Others:
- FX option expiries for the 10am NY cut - 8 Jan 2018
- Central banks still shy away from the CNY even after it joins the IMF's SDR basket
- OPEC will boost output if Iran unrest, Venezuela crisis cause significant disruptions
- Fitch: Global rating outlooks most positive since global financial crisis
- Political headwinds lurk in the shadows for the UK and Eurozone
Markets:
- NZD leads on the day, EUR lags behind
- European equities are all higher on the day
- Gold is up by 0.08% to $1,320.43
- WTI crude is up by 0.52% to $61.76
- US 10-year yields is down by 1bps to 2.46%
- Bitcoin is down 8.4% to $15,350
It was a session that didn't offer much major action, but an underlying theme dominated trading - and that's dollar strength.
Trading was rather straightforward with only the NZD and CAD switching places between themselves and the USD as the top performer - while other pairs slumped during the session. The NZD remains underpinned - as it is supported by AUD/NZD selling as I mentioned here.
Meanwhile, the CAD also remains supported as rally sellers in USD/CAD are keeping the loonie underpinned for the time being. I highlighted more on the pair here.
The Japanese yen had a rather eventful session. USD/JPY stuck to the theme in initial trading, as it went up to a high of 113.39 - but then a sudden drop saw it fall to 113.13 and the pair has stuck around there since.
Meanwhile, other major currencies were not really colourful on the day as they were weaker against the greenback mostly. AUD was for the most part the weakest currency on the major bloc on the day as technical levels are hinting at a lower AUD for the time being.
The EUR turns out to be the laggard in European trading so far as EUR/USD slumped below the 1.2000 earlier and is now trading near session lows at 1.1984. The pair momentarily jumped back above 1.2000, but then gains gave way again and is now below it as sellers look to take charge.
In other markets, equities continued to soar once again and there just doesn't look like anything will get in the way of stopping the stock market party at the start of 2018 it seems. Here's how European equities are doing so far (political woes weighing in on UK and Italy though):
- Eurostoxx +0.17%
- Germany's DAX +0.22%
- UK's FTSE -0.16%
- France's CAC 40 +0.27%
- Italy's FTSE MIB -0.05%
- Spain's IBEX +0.16%
