Forex news from the European morning session 20 May

News:

  • Greece turns the screw on EU deal with threat that it won't make 5th June IMF payment
  • US Fed's Evans repeats his call for a delay in rate hikes to early 2016
  • Fed's Evans could be convinced to raise rates earlier that 2016
  • BOE MPC minutes votes 9-0 to keep rates unchanged - Growth to pick up in Q2, house prices being monitored
  • Schaeuble's analysis of Greece is wrong says Varoufakis
  • EU's Moscovici says there has been important progress on Greece but no deal yet
  • German construction order books fill up for 2015
  • Saudi Arabia and main OPEC partners have declined Chinese requests for extra crude oil in May and June
  • UK CBI urges companies to "speak out early" in favour of remaining in EU
  • Option expiries 10am NY cut today 20 May

Data:

  • March 2015 Eurozone construction output +0.8% vs -1.8% prior m/m
  • German PPI April mm +0.1 % vs +0.2% exp
  • May 2015 Swiss ZEW investor sentiment -0.1 vs -23.2 prior
  • Japan leading index CI March final 106.00 vs 105.5 prev
  • Japan machine tool orders April final 10.5% vs 10.4% prev
  • Nikkei 225 closes up +0.85% at 20,196.56

It's been another busy session with some USD demand dominating along with another kick lower for the euro as Greece remains in focus ahead of the FOMC Minutes later

We saw an early move down to 1.1062 in EURUSD that lead the way with GBPUSD posting 1.5472 but we were soon heading back above 1.1100 on short covering and with USDJPY failing to hold over 121.00 and USDCHF over 0.9406

Then came the BOE MPC Minutes which saw the pound initially a tad lower but then short-covering kicked in as traders lost patience with any further move lower. GBPUSD has been up to take out offers at 1.5540-50 but with EURGBP failing to break below 0.7140-45 we've seen cable sellers re-appear

USDCAD saw an early spike to 1.2257 before the US$ ran out of steam and oil prices firmed and we've back down to 1.2213 while AUDUSD has remained on the back foot below 0.8000 after it's Asian fall. NZDUSD has also looked offered all session and we've seen it fall from 0.7365 to 0.7324 so far

Focus turns to the FOMC Minutes and more fun n games later