- US May trade deficit falls to $26 bln, lowest since November 1999
- Canadian unemployment rate rise 0.2% to 8.6% in June, 7.4k jobs lost
- Canada posts record trade deficit; -C$ 1.3 bln
- Japanese PM Aso says to announce election date soon
- General Motors emerges from bankruptcy; US Treasury holds 61%
- University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey falls to 64.6 from 70.8; weaker than expected
- 17 members of Congress ask Obama to launch Fed/BofA investigation
- US’s Geithner reiterates strong dollar policy; says Bernanke doing great job; not worried about Chinese reserve currency proposals; US markets deepest, most liquid.
- Oil falls to new trend low of $58.72; closes at $59.88
- S&P 500 closes at 879, -3.9 pts or 0.4%
Once again the JPY pairs were the epicenter of the currency world. Talk of poor demand for Japanese investment trusts helped spook traders as they antcipate maturing trusts will have trouble finding buyers when they mature later this month. USD/JPY fell to the 91.77 level, triggering a stop-loss at 91.80 that had been well-advertised around the market. Looks like it was “pre-filled”, with a bank selling heavily ahead of the order, triggering the order and squaring its books at the lows. Prices rebounded to 92.45 before stalling, not much of a retracement.
EUR/JPY selling led EUR/USD around by the nose today; the fall to 1.3878 was entirely on the back of EUR/JPY falling as low as 127.80 where it found support twice. It closes the session near 129.00.Soft consumer sentiment data weighed on risk trades for a time.
AUD fell to 0.7740 during the US morning but spent much of the day around o.7775/80. USD/CAD ran into more selling from a Chinese name today, presumably for M&A flows into Canada. Canadian data was mixed with theemployment report not as bad as feard but trade figures showing a record deficit.
