Well, not alot of change from where North America closed out Thursday, infact EUR/USD and GBP/USD are effectively unchanged. The USD saw some accelerated strength soon after the North American close, but there has been no followthrough and we’ve settled back into consolidative trade mode. Talk of Asian sovereign bids lying in wait down at 1.3900/20 will be helping limit USD gains.
Risk appetite has been dented by yesterday’s release of weak US employment data which is supporting the dollar. The U.S. currency has also been bolstered by various Chinese, Japanese and Russian comments, which have helped ease concerns over the dollar’s standing as numero uno global reserve currency.
A few European data releases out today, the two with probably the most chance of elliciting a reaction being the 08:30 GMT release of UK PMI services for June, expected 51.5, and then at 09:00 GMT Euro zone retail sales for May, expected -0.1% m/m and -2.7% y/y.
It’ll be interesting to see what level of interest there is in proceeedings today given the absence of the U.S. later. On balance the chances are we’ll probably see limited activity, but with the forex markets you can never be quite sure.
