Forex news and trading headlines 15 December 2016
News:
Stronger US dollar brought about by faster pace of rate hikes would "bring disorder worldwide" Xinhua
- EURUSD posts 14-year lows as USD demand prevails
- BOE is the next cab off the rank but not expected to take us for a ride
- UK-EU trade deal could take 10 years to finalize and still fail
- SNB leaves key interest rates unchanged
- SNB's Jordan says Swiss situation differs from US regarding interest rates
- SNB's Jordan says they are not a slave to ECB action
- SNB says they will remain active in FX market as necessary
- Swiss government says economic outlook remains positive despite "swiss franc shock"
- ECB says cyclical systemic risks being contained in most Eurozone nations
- Option expiries for the 10 am NY cut today 15 Dec
Data:
UK retail sales Nov mm +0.2% vs 0.0% exp
Eurozone Markit mftg PMI Dec flash 54.9 vs 53.7 exp
Germany Markit/BME mftg PMI Dec flash 55.5 vs 54.5 exp
France Markit mftg PMI Dec flash 53.5 vs 51.8 exp
An early game of cat n mouse burst into life as USDJPY burst through 118.00 and set the tone for continued USD demand, a theme accelerated as early NA desks got underway.
USDJPY found good demand at 117.20 in Asia and that was never seriously tested as first 117.50 then 117.85 were taken out again and then the reported 118.00 barrier to post 118.65 in a rush.
EURUSD had been toying with the large 1.0500 option expiries and we'd seen good two-way business but then came the USD surge higher that saw 1.0405 taking out the 1.0450 barrier and testing the larger one at 1.0400.
SNB left rates on hold as expected as did the BOE and both the franc and pound have found themselves undermined again with USDCHF posting 1.0325 and GBPUSD 1.2445. EURGBP demand into 0.8330 has helped cap the latter after better than expected UK retail sales data but still worse than previous.
USDCAD found sellers around 1.3350 while AUDUSD found buyers into 0.7360
A raft of data comes our way at 13.30 GMT to add into the heady post-FOMC mix.
