Forexlive Americas FX news wrap: USD sees strong demand.

Forex news for NY trading on March 28, 2018

In other markets:

Spot gold is fell $19.30 or -1.43% on the stronger USD
WTI crude oil was also influenced by the dollar and a smaller than expected gain in inventories (at least against the API private data). It is lower by -$0.60 or -0.90% at $64.67
Bitcoin had a quiet day with only a $361 range. The bell weather digital currency is down -$72 at $7916.

In the US stock market today, the Nasdaq stocks dominated and were lower.

Amazon fell -4.38%
Tesla fell -7.67%
Netflix fell -4.96%
Intel fell -3.11%
Nvidia fell another -1.85%

The major indices showed:

S&P fell -7.62 points or -0.29%
Dow fell -9.29 points or -0.4%
Nasdaq fell -59.58 points or -0.85%

In the debt market in the US, the yield curve flattened:

2 year 2.282%, +1.8 basis points
5 year 2.59%, +2.1 basis points
10 year 2.775%, unchanged
30 year 3.012%, -1.6 basis points

With the US stocks sliding and the bond yields still on the low side, one might expect some dollar weakness. However, the dollar soared.

Looking a snap shot of the strong and weak currencies today, the USD far outpacing the next closest currency (the AUD). Meanwhile, the JPY got hammered. That combination made the USDJPY the biggest moving of the day (at up 1.57% from the close yesterday). HMMMM....No flight into the safety of the JPY?

Nope....

What might have influenced the flows today were a few things.

GDP in the US came in better than expected. It was the 3rd cut of the 1Q (which is old news) but it was still higher and just below the 3% benchmark the market is looking for from growth
It was reported that China's Xi and No. Korea's Kim met which eases some geo-political tensions (and flight flows). That outweighed the stock market fear.
The stock market fell but most of the negative flows were centered in the high flying tech. Even with Amazons -4.38% decline, it is still up over 20% in 2018.
Finally technicals helped the flow into the USD.

Looking at the USDJPY, the pair started the day testing the 100 hour MA way down at 105.32 (the low reached 105.30 in the first hour of trading). From there,

The price tested a trend line on the hourly at 105.45,
moved above the 200 hour MA at 105.72 area, and the rally was on.
Later in the early NY afternoon, an intersection of MAs was busted at 106.40 area , and another leg higher took the price to the session highs around 107.00.

Overall, 3 handles were traded in the pair (105, 106 and 107). The price moved up 1.57%.

The EURUSD is another pair that broke some technical levels on the way down (see chart below).

It fell below the 100 and 200 hour MAs (blue and green lines) and ran down toward 1.2300 area. In the new day, the 1.2295-97 is a swing support target to eye. Get below and a move toward 1.2250-60 would be eyed.

Key technicallly, for the GBPUSD was a break of the 200 hour MA and trend line at the 1.4095 area (see chart below). That area was broken in the NY afternoon session and continued down to another key level at the 38.2% and swing low from yesterday at 1.4066 (See chart below). In the new day, that level will be the next barometer for the bulls/bears. Break below is more bearish. Hold and a retest of the 200 hour MA at 1.4096 will be a key level to eye. Get above and the selling today might be forgotten tomorrow.