- China raises reserve requirements 50 bps (wire service initially incorrectly reported it was 50bps rate hike, causing the USD to rally before correction quickly reversed USD gains)
- EU/IMF financial aid plan for Ireland likely to be announced next week -EU sources
- Irish Minister: Impossible to say how much money is going to be required until the European/IMF team have examined banks
- IMF’s Strauss Kahn: Europe has “serious growth problem”, productivity lags in Southern countries with competiveness problems
- IMF’s Strauss Kahn: Sovereign debt crisis not over in Europe
- ECB’s Gonzalez Paramo: Bank’s role in systemic risk council will not affect its’ price stability objective
- ECB’s Stark: Monetary policy strategy needs to be geared towards medium term, resist fine tuning temptation
- Bernanke defends Fed’s policy, turns tables on China – Bloomberg
- Hong Kong govt: To lower loan-to-value ratio for mortgages. To raise stamp duty for short-term housing transactions. If necessary will come up with more measures to curb property bubbles
- IMF’s Strauss Kahn: Face problem that some may think worst of crisis over, so urge to make changes fades
- BOJ’s Morimoto: Expansion of asset buying one strong option if economy worsens – Kyodo
- Italy lower house passes 2011 budget law
- German October PPI +0.4% m/m, +4.3% y/y, stronger than median forecasts +0.3%, +4.1% respectively
Euro has made across the board gains, EUR/USD up at 1.3695 from early 1.3640, EUR/JPY at 114.20 from early 113.70.
EUR/USD rose quickly as Europe entered the fray, tripping stops through 1.3670 and marching quickly toward 1.3700. There it ran into selling from the BIS above 1.3690 and we slipped back marginally.
But with a couple of ECB officials warning that the central bank won’t let the euro zone debt crsis/European banking concerns hold them back from tweaking rates higher, if deemed necessary to maintain price stability, we were soon moving higher again.
Middle Eastern sovereign buying was noted as we moved over 1.3700 and we’ve been to a session high 1.3731 so far. There was a moment of consternation for the euro bulls as a wire service incorrectly announced China had raised interest rates 50 bps when infact it was only reserve requirements. A sharp dip below 1.3700 was followed quickly by equally sharp rebound as the error was rectified.
Bearish comments by Strauss Kahn (see above) in late morning trade have served to take a little of the gloss off the euro’s performance.
Talk of decent sell orders lying in wait up at 1.3750.
Cable at 1.6030 effectively unchanged on the day. Middle Eastern buying helped cable rally nicely, but well noted sell orders at 1.6090/00 proved a very durable barrier to the upside. We topped out at 1.6094, with a Singapore branch of a large US commercial bank a very notable seller at the highs.
It was the same bank which was notable buyer of cable down around 1.5900 yesterday, just before we rallied strongly through 1.5950. Guess they made a nice tidy profit.
USD/JPY sits unchanged at 83.35, Buy orders noted clustered down at 83.00, stops through 82.90. On the topside, buy stops seen through 83.75 before sell orders clustered just ahead of 84.00 where barrier option interest is said to lie. More stops above 84.00 before noted exporter sell orders at 84.25/40.
