- FOMC discussed adding to asset purchases at April meeting: GDP outlook lowered, unemployment raised
- Geithner: Financial system starting to heal; exit strategy from government private-sector interventions important
- National Association of Realtors: Commercial real estate prices to stay week for next 6-9 months
- Obama: Welcomes “return to normalcy” in financial markets
- Iran test-launches medium range missile
- Goldman: Yuan, not euro, to challenge dollar; will take 5-10 years
- IMF: UK recovery to be long and hard but worst may be over
- IMF: BOJ should guard against downside risks in Japanese economy
- Oil reaches $62, highest since November, Gold touches $940
- S&P reverses intraday gains, falls 0.5%
Today was a momentum driven day as system-driven and leveraged accounts dwarfed all others. Technical hurdles fell like dominoes with a 200-day moving average break in GBP/USD and a move to highs not seen since the first week of the year in EUR/USD among others.
Option barriers at 1.3710, 1.3800 and 1.3825 were overcome as the Euro reached 1.3830 shortly after the FOMC revealed that it discussed adding to its bond buying program in April, just over a month after it announced it would purchase $1.1 trln of the agencies and Treasuries.1.3853 is next resistance, the 61.8% retracement of the drop from the rocket ride in December as the Fed adopted quantitative ease.
GBP/USD met resistance at the 1.5554 level, the 200-day moving average and again at 1.5724, the highs posted back in December after the Fed moves to QE. It rallied all the way toward 1.5800 before stalling at 1.5794.
USD/JPY traded weaker with the broad dollar and then weaker with EUR/JPY profit-taking. Last night’s GDP and the Iranian missile launch helped revive the JPY’s safe-haven role. Lower US bond yields helped undermine the buck.
AUD and CAD continued their rallies, reaching 0.7809 and 1.1365, respectively.
Profits were booked late in the session as US equities badly lagged the FX and Commodity legs of the reflation trade.
