Forex news from the European morning session 2 Nov

News:

  • ECB's Nowotny says QE has prevented bigger problems
  • PBOC reported to be seeking looser capital curbs
  • Osborne says UK and German economies are the "beating heart" of Europe
  • Greece's Varoufakis releases the statement that rubbed Europe up the wrong way
  • Germany is happy that the Greek banks capital shortfall is smaller than in bailout
  • German engineering orders down 13% in September
  • Japan Post IPO heavily oversubscribed
  • Morgan Stanley lowers EURUSD year-end forecast to 1.0600
  • UBS not fooled by the UK manufacturing data
  • Turkish lira makes solid gains after AK Party wins election
  • Pound posts a TWI 10-week high
  • Option expiries 10am NY cut today 2 Nov
  • Don't forget that North American clocks changed at the week-end
  • Britain faces an invasion of super-rats ... poisons are making them bigger and stronger

Data:

  • October 2015 UK Markit CIPS manufacturing PMI 55.5 vs 51.3 exp
  • Eurozone Markit mftg PMI Oct final 52.3 vs 52.0 exp
  • Germany Markit mftg PMI mm Oct final 52.1 vs 51.6 exp
  • France Markit mftg PMI Oct final 50.6 vs 50.7 exp
  • Spain Markit mftg PMI Oct 51.3 vs 52.0 exp
  • Switzerland SVE PMI Oct 50.7 vs 50.1 exp
  • Switzerland retail rales Sept yy real +0.2% vs -0.6% prev
  • Australia commodity index Oct yy -19.8 vs -21.00 prev
  • Nikkei 225 closes down -2.1% at 18,683.24

A cautious start to the week and month but one that's seen the pound finding some love helped by better than expected UK mftg PMI data

The euro started off looking to consolidate some gains from Friday but was soon under pressure as European equity markets turned higher

EURUSD was soon heading down below 1.1020 from 1.1045 and EURGBP down to 0.7135 from 0.7155 despite better final EZ mftg PMIs

The weaker EURGBP had already lent support to cable and we saw further acceleration from 1.5450 t0 1.5499 after the stronger UK data but once again was forced to retreat as rally sellers won that battle again and we've been back to 1.5455. Overall though it's been a good morning's work for the pound so far

USDJPY was on the back foot early on with a weaker Nikkei sending it down to trawl around 120.40 but was soon making some USD-led gains to 120.65 albeit tempered by some EURJPY selling above 133.00

USDCHF also needed little excuse to rally from 0.9855 to 0.9886 but it too had the momentum contained by EURCHF supply into 1.0890

AUDUSD has been crawling around 0.7130 but NZDUSD has seen a solid fall from 0.6780 to 0.6735 as USD-neg prevails overall while USDCAD has had helping hand from softer oil prices to have a look above 1.3100 only to run out of steam

US mftg data to come will add some additional volatility but it's a all bit scrappy still