Forex trading headlines from the European morning session 30 August
- Syria: UK’s Osborne says defeat on military action vote means debate started on Britain’s role in world affairs
- Syria: Hollande says France can take military action without Britain
- German retail sales july m/m -1.4% vs +0.5% exp -0.8% prev revised up from -1.5%
- Eurozone inflation flash august +1.3% vs +1.4% exp +1.6% prev
- Eurozone unemployment july 12.1~% as exp/prev
- UK mortgage approvals july 60,624 vs 59,000 exp
- Eurozone economic sentiment august 95.2 vs 93.5 exp 92.5 prev
- Italian CPI august prelim +0.3% vs +0.2% exp +0.1% prev
- Italian unemployment july 12% vs 12.2% exp 12.1% prev
- Italian PPI m/m +0.1% as exp/prev
- Japanese construction orders july +13.7 vs +21.9 prev
- Japanese housing starts july +12% vs +13.6% 1+15.3% prev
- Swiss KOF indicator august 1.36 vs 1.33 exp 1.25 prev revised up from 1.23
- Indian PM Singh says rupee fall is part of necessary adjustment
- ECB’s Nowotny says emerging market turmoil not having an impact on EZ so far
- Nikkei closes down 0.53% at 13,388.86
- Japan’s GPIF posts april-june gain of JPY 2.21 trln
- Gold falls again
Traders were unwilling to get too involved today with Syria still casting its shadow and month-end flows so far at a minimum.
The pound took a little knock due to the government’s defeat last night on the vote to take military action and the additional pressure the PM will find from within his own ranks. GBPUSD wiped its feet at 1.5500 for a while but then dipped to 1.5477 exacerbated by month-end EURGBP buying to 0.8553. We’ve since moved back to 1.5500 and 0.8538 respectively.
The euro was unmoved by a stream of EZ data that all came in around expectations and EURUSD has spent most of the morning at 1.3235-45 after an initial dip to 1.3223.
USDJPY hung around 98.00 for a while with traders cautious over a USD 1 bln option expiry today but then general USD sales saw a dip to 97.89 before bouncing back above 98.20 again. Yen pairs followed suit.
USDCHF posted highs of 0.9322 after finally triggering stops above 0.9310 but has since found itself pinned to 0.9300 as traders book a bit of profit after the recent surge.
Similarly gold continues to find sellers/proft-takers and has fallen again to USD 1392.61 while the AUD, CAD and NZD have all had a quiet session.
Month-end flows around the fix later hopefully may stir things up a little, but it’s been painfully scrappy so far.