A fairly quiet Monday trading day in the forex with the major currency pairs all with trading ranges below the 22 day average.

The USDJPY was the biggest mover, thanks to a sharp fall midday after the pair got within a few pips of the 32-year high at 151.93 (the high reached 151.90), and got nervous. The fear of intervention phobia, took the price from a high of 151.90 to a low of 151.19 within minutes. Despite the sharp fall, the USDJPY's 71 pip range was still the largest of the major currencies but was still short of the month average of 80 pips.

IN other pairs vs the USD, the EURUSD range was only 59% of normal (only 41 pips vs 70 average), The AUDUSD was 66% of average (39 pips), and the NZDUSD (only 30 pip range) was 56% of average.

ranges

Quiet Monday trading.

Tomorrow has the potential to heat up, however, as traders will have the US CPI data to ponder (0.1% MoM and 0.3% for core MoM expected). That data will be released at 8:30 AM ET.

Looking at other markets, the US yields are ending the day mixed with the shorter end lower and the longer end higher:

  • 2-year yield 5.032%, -2.9 basis points
  • 5-year yield 4.660% -0.5 basis points
  • 10-year yield 4.637% +1.0 basis points
  • 30-year yield 4.756% +2.4 basis points

The mixed picture was also evident in the closing levels for US stocks:

  • Dow industrial average rose 54.77 points or 0.16% at 34337.88
  • S&P index fell a modest -3.69% or -0.08% at 4411.54
  • NASDAQ index fell -30.37 points or -0.22% at 13767.73

The Dow 30 was led by

  • Boeing which rose 4.01%. There was talk that China after the Xi/Biden meeting would put an order in for Boeing airplanes.
  • Disney rose 1.33% despite the sluggish start for the Marvel movie this weekend
  • Merck rose 1.07%
  • Walmart rose 0.90%
  • Caterpillar rose 0.83%

The losers in the Dow included:

  • Nike which fell -1.8% after rising by 9.27% last week.
  • Intel fell -1.62%. Its shares rose 7.32% last week
  • Home Depot fell -1.21% after rising 6.93% last week
  • Apple fell -0.86% after rising 5.54% last week