Forex trading headlines from the European morning session 2 April
News:
- NATO says situation with Russian forces on Ukrainian border remains ” incredibly concerning”
- ESM approves EUR 150 mln loan disbursment to Cyprus
- Cyprus must see assets seized to tame bad debt
- Greece will get additional aid if needed says Schaueble
- All change please as Hollande shuffles the pack
- Flows into Australia making Morgan Stanley bullish on AUD
Data:
- Q4 2013 eurozone GDP revised down to 0.2% vs 0.3% prior q/q
- February euro zone PPI -0.2% vs -0.1% exp m/m
- March UK Markit/CIPS construction PMI 62.5 vs 63.0 exp
- Spanish unemployment change March m/m -16,620 vs -5,300 exp
- UK Nationwide house price survey March m/m +0.4% vs +0.8% exp
- Irish jobless claims March sa 396.9k vs 398.7k prev
- Japanese households see 3% y/y inflation in 12 months time
- Nikkei closes up 1.04% at 14,946.32
- Shanghai Composite Index closes +0.56% at 2058.99
As tomorrow’s main event looms ever closer we’ve seen traders in cautious mode and pairs have been mostly range-bound yet again.
EURUSD started the morning in bullish mode still holding gains above 1.3800 but then a decent knock down on EURGBP gave the pairs a shove lower to 1.3790 from 1.3810 and 0.8285 from 0.8305. This in turn gave a lift to cable marking GBPUSD up to 1.6645 from 1.6630 then another surge took offers out at 1.6650 triggering stops to 1.6664 before falling back yet again to 1.6635.
Weaker than expected UK construction PMI had little impact and a downward revision in final Q4 Eurozone GDP only added to place a cap on euro rallies but added little momentum lower.
USDJPY drifted off from 103.87 to 103.75 in tandem with a Nikkei fading into the close and we’ve been in comatose state since with 104.00 still proving a bridge too far for the moment at least.
USDCAD failed to hold o/n gains to 1.1040 and drifted back down toward the strong barrier-related support at 1.1000, posting lows of 1.1015 before also coming to a standstill. The kiwi got a kick lower to add to the Asian sales and we’ve dipped from 0.8610 to 0.8560 giving AUDUSD lift on cross buying to 0.9254 from 0.9230.
Expect more of the same with occasional flurries until we get the word from Draghi & Co tomorrrow.
