European session 3 May 2018
- UK Lawmaker Committee : Concerns over Asda - Sainsbury merger
- EUR/USD still muted despite bad inflation data: Here is one reason why
- USD/CAD: Shorts good to go post FOMC
- Weak inflation print, but EUR/USD muted so far
- Eurozone March PPI figures, 2.1% vs 2.1% expected
- Eurozone April preliminary CPI figures, 1.2% vs 1.3% expected
- Brexit Bulldog stating the obvious: when someone has a worse job than you
- FTSE 100 rises to session high on weaker than expected PMI
- UK April services and composite PMI 52.8 vs 53.5 expected
- Dollar weakening after FOMC
- Norway Central Bank keeps key rate unchanged at 0.50%
- Pound finding some love ahead of Services PMI.
- EUR/USD inches above 1.2000 as dollar weakens further in the session
- ECB's Constancio says that Eurozone is wasting benefits of currency union
- Summer time and the living is easy : at least that's what the BOE and ECB hope
- ECB's Hansson says he doesn't see a big future for cryptocurrencies
- UN Chief Antonio Guterres : North Korea on track for denuclearisation
- US-China trade talks have just begun on the day
- ECB's Villeroy: Slower French Q1 growth is not a surprise
- EUR/USD price between two large options waiting eurozone CPI
- ECB's Hansson says latest Euro-area developments are positive
- European equities a little lower to start the day
- Danske says effects from Easter to become a drag on Eurozone CPI reading later today
- USD/JPY back lower again as move towards 110.00 stalls
- Eurostoxx futures -0.1% in early European trading
- Pound seeing a little temporary relief as EUR/GBP falls
- EU raises 2018 Spain growth forecast to 2.9% - report
- Cable rises above 1.3600 as dollar remains sluggish ahead of European trading
- ECB and BOE to 'study' Brexit threats to financial services: don't expect a fix, (but they might come up with one)
- Economic data coming up in the European session
- FX option expiries for the 1400 GMT cut - 3 May 2018
Market data
- FTSE flat at 7536
- Gold up 0.5% at 1311.83
- WTI flat at 67.92
- Bitcoin up 0.87% at 9230
It was a session post FOMC and the market was largely undecided what to make of the Fed's statement. The Fed had moved to a slightly more dovish stance and the recent bullish march of the dollar has ceased, for now.
The UK services PMI release, the last major release of the three for the UK this week, was a slight miss. GBP/USD sold off a few points but kept to the recent intraday ranges. It was a similar story after the weaker than expected eurozone inflation data. The miss was substantial, but the reaction was underwhelming. General market chatter is that Easter fell at an awkward time for the collection of data , so the results were skewed. That's the general view and most people are taking that as a reason to see through the bad data. EUR/USD pretty much sat, stuck , between two large expiries for most of the session, yawn.
In other news USD/JPY threatened a larger movie lower, and is moving towards 109.40 as I type with more looking likely in the next session.
There was more talk of Brexit customs deals between the UK and EU, but nothing that really grabbed the attention. This kind of chat was expected - it is difficult, it is hard, but we will sort it out. They will too, it's the Irish Border problem which is harder.
