- Italian 10-year bonds fall to euro-era lows after weak auction, ECB said to be buying in secondary market
- MF Global unlikely to survive weekend
- U Mich consumer sentiment revised to 60.9 from 57.5
- US spending as expected in PCE report, income soft
- Japan and Brazil showing interest in EFSF
- CFTC report shows yen longs doubled
- Lots of talk about Thursday’s ECB decision
- Fitch says Greek haircut is a default event
- S&P and Fitch affirm EFSF AAA-rating
- JPMorgan reverses call, says US Q4 GDP to be +2.5%
- Europe to set clocks back one hour on Sunday
- S&P 500 fractionally higher on day at 1285, gains 3.7% on week
- WTI crude down 49-cents to $93.47
- Gold down $3 to $1744
- JPY and USD are top performers; CHF and EUR lag
If you slept through the entire session, you wouldn’t have missed much and that was probably just fine for most after a sleepless week. The ranges in North America were tight and never budged.
One question entering the trading day was whether the euro would be able to close above the 200-day moving average but it was never in doubt as most currencies moved pulled back only fractionally from yesterday. EUR/USD traded 20 pips either side of 1.4160 and the lack of a stronger pull back must to be seen as a win for the bulls.
USD/JPY took a run at yesterday’s all time low but fell a pip or two short. The CFTC report inspired some talk about intervention and pushed the pair 15 pips from the lows.
Some large orders and a suspected fat finger made for some momentary excitement in cable but it was short lived. Among the commodity currencies, CAD made a few strong moves but nothing materialized as flows dominated.