Forex news and trading headlines 2 Feb 2017
News:
- ECB says headline inflation has recently increased, as expected
- ECB could exit QE if Eurozone members pull their fingers out says Germany's Meister
- Brexit White Paper to be released today by UK govt
- There will be no Scottish referendum in this parliament says UK's Fallon
- Forget all the hype, the BOE won't tell us what we don't already know
- The BOE will be the next central bank to brush off inflation
- Nippon Life plans to buy more European than US bonds
- Option expiries for the 10 am NY cut today 2 Feb
- Nikkei 225 closes down -1.22% at 18,914.58
Data:
- December 2016 Eurozone PPI 0.7% vs 0.4% exp m/m
- January 2017 UK Markit/CIPS construction PMI 52.2 vs 53.8 exp
- Switzerland December retail sales yy -3.5% vs -0.7% exp
- Spain January net unemployment mm 57.3k vs 60.6k exp
Yen, Canadian $ and aussie $ strength vs pound and us dollar weakness have been the themes of the morning. Gold and oil firmer too.
USDJPY found a few buyers early on after a quick dip below but failed into 113.00 and has since been on the back foot down to 112.30 with yen demand back in focus and putting a brake on core pairs, most notably GBPUSD again.
With GBPJPY falling below 142.00 we've seen GBPUSD fail above 1.2700 again and retreating to 1.2660 with EURGBP heading back to 0.8550 having held 0.8500.
Oil and gold strength have provided support for AUD and CAD while EURUSD has taken advantage of post-FOMC USD supply to return above 1.0800 albeit unable to clear 1.0820 again.
Focus on the upcoming BOE announcements and presser with Carney on air at 12.30 GMT
US initial jobless claims at 13.30 GMT
