Forex trading headlines from the European morning session 1 Sept
News:
- Some BOJ officials ready to boost stimulus after sales tax hike
- Japanese PM advisor Honda says next sales tax hike needs to be delayed until 2017
- German govt’s Seibert confirms Merkel-Draghi phone call
- Russia’s Lavrov says Ukrainian troops must leave positions from which they can fire on civilian targets
- Putin says that he hopes common sense will prevail in the West over sanctions
- Ukraine central bank bans access to foreign exchange by card
- Merkel says No to military solution for Ukraine crisis but Europe can not simply accept Russia’s behaviour
- Russia and Ukraine to hold gas talks on Sept 6
- Spain has left the recession behind says Spanish minister
- German engineering orders July unchanged y/y
Data:
- August 2014 UK Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI 52.5 vs 55.0 exp
- German Q2 GDP qq final -0.2% vs -0.2% exp
- Eurozone Markit mftg PMI August 50.7 vs 50.8
- German Markit mftg PMI August 51.4 vs 52.0
- French Markit mftg PMI August 46.9 vs 46.5 exp
- Italian Markit mftg PMI August 49.8 vs 50.8 exp
- UK mortgage approvals July 66,569 vs 66,600 exp
- Spanish Markit mftg PMI Aug 52.8 vs 53.9 prev
- Swiss PMI August 52.9 vs 53.3 exp
- Irish Markit mftg PMI August 57.3 vs 55.4 prev
- Greek manufacturing expands but growth slips back
- Japanese overall vehicle sales Aug y/y down 9.1%
- Nikkei closes up 0.34% at 15,476,60
In what promises to be a lively few days ahead and following on from a lively end to last week we’ve seen some decent action this morning ahead of the US holiday.
EURUSD had toyed with bids at 1.3120 but despite some weaker than expected PMI data we saw a gradual chew higher to 1.3146 encouraged by cross-buying interest only to run into offers at 1.3150 and we’ve drifted back to 1.3133 as I type. EURJPY has had a look at 137.00 from 136.70 and EURGBP has been back up to 0.7907 from early lows of 0.7890
That low was the result of good GBP buying from the off which saw cable run up from 1.6595 through recent highs of 1.6615 to post 1.6644 after wiping its feet at 1.6625-30. But then weaker mftg PMI saw a drop back to 1.6615 where we’ve hung around since for the most part with other GBP gains similarly undermined
USDJPY has retained a bid above 104.00 on renewed BOJ easing rhetoric and yen-pair buying and we’ve spent most of the session near highs of 104.28. USDCHF has also found bids in the dip on the retreat from a failed attempt at 0.9200 in Asia and mostly been camped around 0.9180-85
AUDUSD, NZDUSD and USDCAD have all enjoyed a quiet morning but also drifted off session and o/n highs.
No US markets today so we’ll either grind down to a halt or enjoy some more fun in thin liquidity.
