Forex news from the European morning session 4 February 2015
News:
- Greek fin min says ” we will never seek financial aid from Moscow”
- Greece says they plan to repay debt to ECB
- Greek fin min Varoufakis says talks with Draghi were fruitful
- Greece’s Tsipras: We don’t have a deal yet but are moving in the right direction
- Germany’s Schaeuble says Europe on good track to become more competitive
- ECB’s Weidmann does not see dangerous deflation at the moment
- PBOC cuts bank reserve ratio to 19.5% from 20.0%
- Romania cuts interest rates by 25bps to record 2.25% low
- BOJ’s Iwata says its appropriate to maintain current policy for the time being
- European unemployment heading in the right direction
- RBI’s Rajan says borrowing in USD is like playing russian roulette
- ForexLive Preview: Bank of England MPC announcement Thursday 5 Feb 12.00 GMT
Data:
- January 2015 UK Markit/CIPS services PMI 57.2 vs 56.3 exp
- Eurozone Markit services PMI Jan final 52.7 vs 52.3 prev
- German Markit services PMI Jan final 54.00 vs 52.7 prev
- French Markit services PMI Jan final 49.4 vs 49.5 prev
- December 2014 eurozone retail sales 0.3% vs 0.2% exp m/m
- US MBA mortgage market index 551.2 vs 544.2 prior
- Italian Markit services PMI Jan 51.2 vs 50.0 exp
- Spanish Markit services PMI Jan 56.7 vs 54.3 prev
- January 2015 UK Lloyds business barometer 49 vs 45 prior
- Irish Markit services PMI Jan 62.5 vs 62.6 prev
- Nikkei 225 closes up +1.98% at 17,678.74
- Shanghai Composite Index closes down 1.0% at 3,174.13
The pound has had a decent morning and GBPUSD is currently holding gains over 1.5200 after chewing its way higher on better UK services PMI
Cable had an early wobble to test the 1.5150 support but since the data it’s been a steady climb higher and that’s dragged EURGBP lower to 0.7525 from 0.7570 with other GBP pairs feeling the love too
EURUSD also had a look at 1.1430 support but better than expected final readings of services PMI provided some support but the rallies are still being sold into and apart from EURGBP we’ve also seen EURJPY down to 134.20 from overnight highs of 135.36.
USDJPY has drifted down to 117.25 from 117.70 after failing at 118.00 but bids into 117.20 have seen it rally back to 117.47. Yen pairs have followed a similar pattern for the most part
Oil prices drifted off and that gave a floor to USDCAD under 1.2400 to rally to 1.2476 before dropping back and AUDUSD saw a rapid rise to 0.7850 from 0.7795 on the PBOC cutting reserve ratio news only to fall back just as fast.
NZDUSD has looked soft mainly due to cross plays and has posted 0.7383 from 0.7820 before steadying.
A busy enough morning with Greece inevtiably in the headlines again too. Expect more of the same
