- Swiss trade balance +2419 mln in January, up from revised +1362 in December
- BOJ’s Shirakawa: Must ensure market trust in fiscal rebuilding
- German engineering sector in NRW agrees salary increase of 2.7% for workers from April 2011
- Russia CBank seen buying $1.4 bln in forex market interventions on Thursday as rouble keeps firming
- BOE’s Barker: UK recovery hesistant
- UK January PSNB £4.339 bln, PSNCR -£11.770 bln
- Swiss ZEW investor sentiment 52.5 in February, down from 56.2 in January
Not alot of net change on the majors this morning. Sterling weakness is probably the main feature, cable down at 1.5605 from early 1.5655, while EUR/GBP is up at .8705 from around .8665.
Cable was already lower around 1.5625, not helped by downbeat comments from BOE’s Barker, when poor UK public finances data put the skids under sterling. Cable dropped to session low 1.5575 before recovering. We’ve recently seen decent buy interest emerge in 1.5550/60 area, and the cable bears decided discretion was the better part of valor and booked some profits on approach.
EUR/USD came under pressure early, dropping from 1.3570 to session low 1.3540. Option interest at 1.3525 and especially lumpy interest at 1.3500 well noted, and it wasn’t overly surprising when decent buy interest surfaced ahead of said levels. We’re presently back up at 1.3580 with talk of sell orders up at 1.3600/20.
USD/JPY at 90.85, hardly changed on day after Japanese exporter sales had pressured the pairing overnight.
