- BOJ’s Ishida: on buying open-ended JGBs and not manipulating the currency
- Chinese Feb Vehicle Sales drop 13.6% y/y
- German Jan Trade Balance as expected at Eur 15.7bn vs prior Eur 16.9bn ( revised from Eur 16.8bn)
- Finnish Trade Balance – Eur 0.43bn vs prior -Eur 0.74bn
- French Jan Industrial Production – 1.20% vs expected flat, last – 0.10%
- Japan: Abe ‘can’t conceive of hyper inflation’
- Danish Feb CPI 1.2% y/y, Trade Balance DKK 6.6bn vs expected DKK 5.5bn
- Swiss Retail Sales rose 1.90% y/y vs expectation 2.80%, last at 4.7%
- Italian Q4 GDP – 0.90% as expected, y/y fell 2.80% vs expectation – 2.70%
- ECB’s Constancio: low interest rates not being passed to some EZ countries
- Portugal Q4 GDP + 1.80% q/q, – 3.80% y/y as expected
The grinch undoubtedly stole it; friday’s NFP excitement was followed by a quiet asian and now largely trendless european market.
For the most part of the morning 20-30 point ranges kept the market in check and at the time of writing the main move of the day is taking place in a slide in cable leading a minor USD resurgence.
GBPUSD has just hit a low at 1.4869, a 2 1/2 year low, after a session high briefly at 1.4943, with the EURUSD and AUDUSD just 10-15 pips lower; EURGBP has gained in this recent flurry to 0.8735.
EURUSD sits at 1.2996 and EURJPY trades 124.87 after a quiet morning against a backdrop of a directionless USDJPY at 96.08.
The economic calendar had little to interest the trading fraternity today and brief comments from Abe, Ishida and Constancio in Europe were lacking in any substance to attract attention.
