The USD has had mixed fortunes overnight in Asia, generally a little firmer, but slipping against the pound as sterling sees some across the board improvement. At the end of the day the changes are pretty marginal, EUR/USD down at 1.3565 from a North American close Wednesday around 1.3595, with USD/JPY is up at 98.00 from around 97.40.
Sterling has managed to steady after the shock of yesterdays failed gilt auction, but the market will probably want to have a look a retail sales data due later in the morning before getting too carried away. EUR/GBP is down at .9295 from around .9335, while GBP/JPY has advanced to 143.00 from around 141.80.
USD/JPY is about 60 pips firmer from where North America left off, which is a little surprising given talk in the market of some very large sell orders (repatriation flows) supposedly hitting the market tomorrow as we head into fiscal year end.
For today economic data due during European session is as follows:
07:45 GMT: French consumer confidence (Mar) expected -44
08:30 GMT: Italian business confidence (Mar) expected 63
09:00 GMT: Italian trade balance non-EU (Feb)
09:00 GMT: Euro zone M3 sa y/y (Feb) 5.5%
09:00 GMT: Euro zone M3 sa (3m) (Feb) 6.3
09:30 GMT: UK retail sales (Feb) -0.4% m/m
09:30 GMT: UK retail sales (Feb) +2.5% y/y
09:30 GMT: UK total business investment q/q Q-4 -3.9%
09:30 GMT: UK total business investment y/y Q-4 final -7.7%
