Forex news March 23, 2015 US edition:
- US durable goods orders Feb -1.4% vs +0.2% exp
- Cap goods orders non-defence ex-air -1.4% vs +0.3%
- Firms lower Q1 tracking after durable goods
- ECB raises ELA ceiling for Greek banks to over €71B
- ECB's Weidmann says eurozone crisis not yet overcome as latest debate on Greece shows
- Juncker starting to feel better about Greek talks
- ECB's Praet sees a window of opportunity on structural reform
- US EIA crude oil inventories +8170K vs +4912K exp
- Bank of England's Forbes says it's unlikely BOE will have to cut rates
- BOE's Miles says next rate move likely to be increase
- French total jobseekers 3494.4K vs 3491.6K exp
- Yemen President flees
- BOC Deputy Lane says growth will slow in 2015 before returning to potential
- Lane says first half growth might be well below 2%
- Lane: Change in financial conditions in response to January rate hike was larger than expected
- EUR leads, NZD lags
The market doesn't like hawkish comments from a central banker and it especially doesn't like them from a supposed dove like Lockhart and on the same day as some poor data on durable goods orders. The S&P 500 gave up all its post-FOMC gains but that wasn't the whole story as FX and the bond market was less moved.
EUR/USD jumped over 1.10 on the durable goods data but sagged back to 1.0950 two hours later as the Lockhart comments were inspected. But from there is was all consolidation as the market generally ignored souring sentiment.
USD/JPY bottomed at 119.25 following the US data and formed a double-bottom with yesterday's low. It chopped higher in a messy 60-pip gain followed by a 45 pip retracement kind of pattern. Last at 119.48.
A few BOE members tried to come to the pound's aid but it could make any kind of move to the upside and sagged down to 1.4860, well of the 1.4955 high after the US data.
USD/CAD was stronger despite a 3.2% jump in oil prices. The pair fell as low as 1.2471 but staged a nice rebound up to 1.2540 then faded back to 1.2514. The loonie has been less connected to oil but that won't last.
The Australian dollar tripped up intraday traders as it hit a session high just above 0.7900 on the durable goods orders numbers but then promptly began a slide down to 0.7845 where it briefly tested the post China-PMI lows before eventually breaking lower to 0.7829.
