So what have we learned today?

  1. There is no sovereign debt, not matter how rank, that cannot be presented to the ECB as collateral
  2. That the slowdown in US growth in the second quarter of the year looks increasingly likely to have been a result of the Japanese earthquake and terrible tornadoes and floods rather than a cyclical slowdown
  3. That buying against the 100-day moving average tends to be a good risk-reward play

We’re now back in the middle of a large triangular consolidation, meaning we’re pretty much in no-man’s land on a medium-term perspective. If you missed the bounce, stay patient. If you are itching to sell, use 1.4440/50 as your backstop. A break back above that level will likely see is work higher within the range, just as it set off a fast decline when we broke below earlier this week.