Forex news from the European trading session 17 October 2014
News:
- BOE’s Haldane says recent data favours a later interest rate hike
- BOE’s Haldane says a mid-2015 rate hike may not be a bad bet by the markets
- US Fed to consider using bank stress tests to prevent financial crisis
- ECB’s Coeure says loose monetary policy shouldn’t delay pace of reform
- ECB’s Rimsevics says monetary stimulus is not enough to safeguard the fragile economy
- ECB’s Weidmann says ABS purchases are problematic
- ECB’s Coeure says they will start to buy assets “within days”
- ECB says they are starting their third covered-bond programme
- ECB’s Coeure says they don’t have an exchange rate target
- ECB’s Mersch says non-standard measures must be temporary
- ECB’s Nowotny says EURUSD weakening is positive for Eurozone economy
- ECB’s Nowotny says they may have to revise Eurozone 2015 GDP down from 1.6% forecast
- ECB’s Constancio says any additional hits to inflation expectations could be harmful
- Spain’s Rajoy says Spanish growth forecasts to be maintained
- BOJ’s Kuroda says production has shown some weakness
- Germany’s Kothe says there will be talks with France on 20 Oct
- Central bank of Russia raises rouble corridor again
Data:
- Eurzozone construction output Aug mm +1.5% vs +0.3% revised prev yy -0.3% vs revised prev of +0.5%
- Italian current a/c balance Aug EUR +2.321bln vs 6.816bln prev
- Nikkei closes down -1.40% at 14,532.51
Ok, so its all relative but despite a stream of rhetoric and an early wobble on the pound markets have been much better behaved this morning
GBPUSD had a quick dip to 1.6030 from 1.6077 on BOE comments ( see above ) but then ground its way back and has since posted 1.6115 again while EURUSD had a little dip to 1.2780 only to bounce back around 1.2830 and generally looked well supported all session
USDJPY opened up on the back foot around 106.20 with a falling Nikkei but despite further falls the pair refused to give up any more ground and yen pairs turned higher dragging USDJPY to 106.60 before running into more offers. EURJPY has been up to 136.73 from 135.85.USDCHF has shadowed EURUSD again as EURCHF remains pinned around 1.2075
USDCAD has drifted down to session lows of 1.1225 while AUDUSD has rallied to have another look at 0.880 and NZDUSD has recovered its mojo to post 0.7961
A funny ol’ morning but with Yellen and data to come we should expect a livelier end to the week from here.