Forex news from the European morning session 20 August
News
- ESM board approves first loan tranche of EUR 26bln for Greece
- Bank of Spain has bent ECB rules to favour its own banks
- US Fed's Williams says monetary policy has sizeable effect on house prices
- Swiss economic minster says franc is "very strong"
- Turkey's Davutoglu says no need for concern on lira
- Looney looks unloved again as oil price continues to fall
- Option expiries 10am NY cut today 20 August
Data:
- UK retail sales July mm +0.1% vs +0.4% exp
- German PPI July mm 0.0% as exp
- UK CBI trends total orders August -1 vs -10 exp
- Switzerland trade balance July CHF +3.47bln vs +3.51bln prev
- Nikkei closes down -0.94 % at 20,0 33.52
We've had a lively session with the euro finding continued demand post-FOMC while the pound ran into fresh sellers accelerated by weaker data
Cable failure at 1.5700 again had already undermined the pair to 1.5660 before weaker headline retail sales sent it quickly to 1.5635 before bouncing to 1.5655 only to fall again on second wave selling to 1.5606
EURGBP chewed through offers into 0.7135 but found those at 0.7150 a step too far and that helped cable rally back above 1.5650 in good two-way business
EURUSD felt the euro love and rallied to 1.1172 after holding 1.1120 early on and we also saw EURJPY to 138.53 from 137.90
USD overall has felt the FOMC fall-out and we've seen USDJPY fall to 123.86 only to find support again while USCHF has also been on the back foot to 0.9615 from 0.9665, finding a little support from the Swiss govt comments
USDCAD has made steady progress to 1.3178 from 1.3110 on weaker oil price while AUDUSD fell to 0.7285 from 0.7330 on commodity price/China fears. NZDUSD failed around 0.6625 again and dipped before finding buyers into 0.6580
US data will keep things ticking over nicely
