Benefited More Than The Pound

The euro continued to slide throughout yesterday's trading session as risk aversion dominated market sentiment. The common currency dropped to a three-week low against both the US dollar and Japanese yen, while the EUR/CHF dropped below 1.2000 during the morning session. Turning to today, all eyes will be on the US Non Farm Employment Change figure, set to be released at 12:30 GMT. Analysts are forecasting that the US added 211K jobs in March, which if true, may lead to additional gains for the greenback today. Economic News USD - Non-Farms Data Could Help Boost Greenback The US dollar continued to advance vs. its riskier currency rivals, like the British pound and euro, yesterday following a poorly received Spanish debt auction earlier this week. The GBP/USD fell over 100 pips during ...

This week was a calm one for the world's leading economy as only few data and economical indexes were released indicating that the revival remains moderate but on track with investors eyes for instance mainly on the EU soil while watching a worse than trade deficit coming out on the last day of the week along with minor significant data yet pessimism was the major feeling and sentiment spread within the local and global financial, currencies and stock markets. If truth be told as the week ended the trade balance report for December was released and showed in fact that the deficit widened in the balance worse than expectations, as the rising U.S. dollar during the same period weighed the exports, taking into account that the trade deficit is the highest since the month of June last year. ...

U.S economy issued the Trade Balance report for the month of December today, which showed which showed that the deficit widened in the balance worse than expectations, as the rising U.S. dollar during the same period weighed the exports, taking into account that the trade deficit is the highest since the month of June last year. The Trade Balance report showed an expansion in deficit during December reaching $48.8 billion, compared to the previous revised deficit of $47.1 billion and worse than expected deficit of $48.5 billion. Moreover, the sub-indices in the report showed that exports increased during December by 0.7 percent to reach $178.76 billion, compared to the previous decline of 1.0%, while imports rose during the same period by 1.3 percent to reach $227.56 billion, noting that ...

Fundamental Analysis EUR "The cost of postponing a solution is extremely high for Europe, but especially for the future of the euro" - Giovanni Bossi, chief executive officer of Banca Ifis SpA Talks on Greek debt swap resumed on Thursday as European finance ministers pressure private bondholders to take bigger losses on their Greek holdings. USD "Improving economic momentum and diminished angst surrounding the financial crisis has encouraged businesses to take on more risk" - Richard DeKaser, deputy chief economist at Parthenon Group Inc. The number of Americans claiming for unemployment benefits rose to 377 thousand in the week ended January 21 from 356 thousand the week before, said the Department of Labor on Thursday. GBP "Given the key role of consumer spending, the CBI survey ...

Fundamental Analysis EUR "The biggest challenge is to respond to the crisis in an adequate manner" - Christine Lagarde, the IMF Managing Director The International Monetary Fund is aiming to increase its lending capacity by 500 billion dollars to protect economies from the escalating euro zone debt crisis. GBP "Unemployment could become one of the main economic and political issues this year" - Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank AG The number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose by 1.2 thousand to 1.6 million in December and the unemployment rate increased to 8.4 per cent, the highest rate in 16 years, said the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday. USD "Builders are seeing greater interest among potential buyers as employment and consumer confidence slowly ...

Major currencies closed the session in New York yesterday with losses against the U.S. dollar, where after the European Central Bank offered more than expected liquidity to the euro-area banks, the sentiment deteriorated on speculation the debt crisis is worsening and the financial sector is hurt significantly from the two-year crisis. However, today the sentiment is mixed as investors are still assessing the European Central Bank move, where the ECB when offered unlimited liquidity to banks attempted to prevent an interbank lending freeze from hurting the banking industry and in a way or another this move is good and will buy Europe some more time to finalize the plan to fight the debt crisis, which in result supported markets to correct the losses seen in the past session. The euro ...

Currencies fluctuated heavily during the Asian and European sessions affected by the downbeat gross domestic product from China, the rising inflation in the United Kingdom and the slump in confidence seen in the euro area and Germany, where the U.S. dollar benefited the most against other major currencies, especially against the euro and the sterling pound. China released the gross domestic product for the third quarter, where over quarterly basis, the Chinese economy grew 2.3% at a slower pace than 2.4% a quarter earlier, while over annual basis, the economy grew 9.1% slower than the previous 9.5% and also below the expected expansion, which added more fears and jitters to the market that China could also follow the rest of major economies and could slow further in the coming period. ...

The Swiss franc continued its drop against majors, after taking a breather yesterday, on expectations the SNB will adopt all measures to halt the franc's rally. Yesterday, the SNB said it would raise sight deposits to 200 billion francs from 120 billion francs, repurchase outstanding SNB bills and adopt foreign exchange swaps, and it revealed that may take further measures if needed. Today, there are talks that the bank is selling franc in forward markets, rather than spot markets, to reduce its appeal more. Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said any decision regarding a target for pegging to the euro is up to the central bank, not ruling out the possibility of seeing one of the two aforesaid options. In the euro area, amid the absence of important fundamentals today, ...

Previous session overview Major currency pairs are little changed Friday, while investors puzzle out whether to risk any major plays before the weekend, when U.S. politicians are likely to hash out a debt agreement. The dollar fell in Asia Friday after the U.S. House cancelled a vote on Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling plan, adding to speculation the risk of a sovereign downgrade is rising even if a last-minute deal is reached by a Tuesday deadline to avoid default. The greenback dropped to a fresh more than four-month low against the yen at JPY77.48 after House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said the House would not vote as scheduled Thursday evening in D.C., as House Republicans were unable to gain enough support within their ranks to secure passage of the bill. At 0350 GMT, the ...