Forex trading headlines from the European morning session 20 February
- Eurozone Markit mftg PMI flash Feb 53.00 vs 54.00 exp
- German Markit mftg PMI flash Feb 54.7 vs 56.3 exp
- French Markit mftg PMI flash Feb 48.5 vs 49.6 exp
- French CPI final Jan -0.6% vs -0.5% exp
- Swiss trade balance Jan CHF +2.593 bln vs +521 mln prev
- German PPI Jan m/m -0.1% vs +0.2% exp
- UK CBI industrial trends orders survey +3 vs +5 exp
- Italian industrial orders Dec m/m -4.9% vs +2.1% prev
- IMF ‘s Lagarde says Chinese hard landing unlikely
- US treasury sec Lew says debt limit reinforces the notion of US as a world leader
- EU’s Dijsselbloem says credit market fragmentation is deepening
- G20: Communique to address US tapering impact on emerging markets
- Russia not cancelling financial aid for Ukraine but conditions must calm down says Kremlin
- BOJ’s Morimoto says it’s inappropriate to say now what conditions might need further easing
- Nikkei closes down -2.15% at 14,449.18
- Shanhai comp index closes down 0.18% at 2138.78
The main features of the morning were some early EM jitters and then a batch of poor PMI flash data from the Eurozone.
With the sad scenes from Ukraine as a backdrop we saw many EM ccys under early pressure and this along with Nikkei fall-out had USDJPY down to 101.68 and USDCHF testing strong support around 0.8850. Both pairs rebounded though as stock markets recovered from their opening lows and pressure was put instead onto the euro and pound.
EURUSD has fallen from 1.3731 when I sat down to 1.3686 so far but is finding good demand down there which is lending support to/gaining support from EURJPY at 139.30 and EURGBP at 0.8220.
GBPUSD has tested yesterday lows just below 1.6340 from 1.6675 earlier on but once again has found a few buyers with expected sizeable demand at 1.6600-25 providing good support still.
AUD and NZD have recovered from their Asian sell-offs with AUDUSD heading back to 0.9000 resistance from 0.8945 and NZDUSD clearing 0.8300 offers just now from 0.8255. USDCAD gave up trying to break 1.1100 and has dipped to 1.1050 support before bouncing.
Plenty going on still, albeit scrappy for much of the time, and more than enough opportunities for the intra-day traders at least.