Forex trading headlines for the European morning session 4 September
- UK Markit services PMI august 60.5 vs 59.0 vs 60.2 prev
- Syria: Putin says Russia still needs to see evidence of chemical attack
- Eurozone Q2 GDP revised unch +0.3% q/q
- French PPI july +0.7% vs +0.2% exp -0.2% prev
- Eurozone retail sales m/m +0.1% vs +0.4% exp -0.5% prev
- Spanish Markit services PMI august 50.4 vs 48.5 prev. highest since june 2011
- Italian Markit services PMI august 48.8 vs 49.4 exp 48.7 prev
- French Markit services PMI august 48.9 vs 47.7 exp/prev
- German Markit services PMI august 52.8 vs 52.4 exp/prev
- Eurozone Markit services PMI august 50.7 vs 51.0 exp/prev
- Nikkei closes up 0.54% at 14,053.87
- Shanghai comp index closes up 0.2% at 2127.62
- ECB’s Asmussen expects EU to approve SSM law next week
- ECB’s Asmussen says timetable on single bank supervison is ambitious but workable
- RBI intervenes “aggressively” to defend the rupee
- US weekly MBA mortgage index 445 vs 439.2 prev
Another lively morning with the pound and aussie dollar both benefitting from better than expected data as traders continue to tread cautiously.
AUD continued its upward path from the Asian session after good Q2 GDP figures with AUDUSD forging up through a raft of sell orders to 0.9167 triggering stop loss buying along the way. EURAUD continued its collapse to 1.4360 and AUDJPY to 0.9132 while GBPAUD also fell sharply to 1.7018 before the pound staged its post-data rally.
That GBP rally saw cable chew its way through strong resistance around 1.5600 to post highs of 1.5632 as EURGBP gave up its 0.8440 support line. Strong buying interest at 0.8425 though gave the pair a base and a rally to 0.8445 so far sending GBPUSD back down to 1.5610.
EURUSD spent most of the session around 1.3165 ignoring mostly better than expected data but jumped to 1.3185 in a rush on the EURGBP rally and USDJPY has once again found the strong sell interest into 100 a step too far. The pair has fallen back from 99.80 to 99.40 with a similar pattern seen on most other yen pairs.
And we shouldn’t forget the good o’l NZD which has also staged a strong rally with NZDUSD posting 0.7902 before retreating.
US trade balance data up next at 12.30 GMT should keep things ticking over nicely.