Time-out for siesta after US dollar beat -up

The morning after: US dollar's slaughter yesterday from worse than expected US consumer confidence and Chicago PMI still lingers in the air of the forex market. There is hardly any movement at all in the market during today's Asian session, with most traders feeling exhausted...

UK house prices increase above expectations

UK house prices continue to rise despite Aug rate hike by the Bank of England (BOE). UK Nationwide House Prices has increased above expectations, coming out at +0.7% m/m (+0.6% expected) and +8.0% y/y (+7.9% expected), even though it was merely half the monthly increase seen...

US dollar looking bearish post-FOMC

Japan's Finance Minister Omi visited Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to discuss foreign exchange rates with the bank's dealers. He said "currency movements should reflect fundamentals", but declined to comment on specific currency levels. He also said the purpose of his visit...

USD's taking a break after yesterday's sprint

If you have stayed away from your trading desk last night, and returned this Asian morning, you would not have noticed anything different on the currency charts. The market hardly moved overnight, and it has been a rather lifeless US session, after USD made all of its gains...

Press reports about Fed gave new batteries to the USD

Surprise, surprise. Just when I thought the market was going for a slumber today, it geared up for unexpected action instead. Today the US dollar rallied broadly and sharply against the other currencies. EUR/USD and GBP/USD suffered the biggest decline since more than a...

USD on the defensive as FOMC rate meeting approaches

t's been a Cablelicious week for GBP/USD, having rallied around 340 pips, compared to the measly 150-pip rally by EUR/USD over the past week. That has coincided with a 68% increase of GBP longs and a slight decrease of Euro longs in the futures market as of last Tuesday. Yen...

To raise or not to raise, that is the question

Are traders back to hoping for US rate hikes by the Fed again, barely after they have been speculating about possible rate cuts? Not too long ago (weeks ago), no rate cut = good for USD. Seems like US bulls are getting more greedy this time round. They want rate hikes,...

Temporary truce between US bulls and bears?

No surprises from BOJ's Governor Fukui's words today when he said that the BOJ "will support sustainable growth under price stability by conducting appropriate monetary policy while carefully checking economic and price conditions." He said the economy is expanding gradually...

US core inflation the highest in over 10 years

I think the USD bullish sentiment has returned with a vengeance. Even though US consumer prices fell last month (decreased 0.5% in September, the biggest drop since November 2005) on the back of a steep slide in energy prices, the underlying inflation rate accelerated to its...

NZD/USD finally breaks out of triangle

The US producer price index (PPI) for finished goods fell by 1.3% in September, the largest since prices fell 1.4% in April 2003, and versus an expected 0.7% decline. TICS came in at a record US$116.8 billion, almost doubling the consensus estimate, but that did not grab...

Cable rallies on good news; Fed speeches due later

True enough, Cable (GBP/USD) made a strong comeback on positive housing data, and on M&A (merger & acquisitions) news that a Qatar-led group could be in the lead to buy Thames Water after putting in a bid worth about GBP 8 billion. The deadline for bids imposed by...

Can Cable bounce back on positive housing data?

UK Rightmove house prices survey shows that asking prices surged 2% month-over-month, bringing the annual rate to 11.5%, and pushing prices to a record high of GBP218,954, beating the previous record of GBP217,580 in July. That marked the fastest pace of annual UK house price...

Can USD's lucky streak be maintained?

US bulls are happily and deliriously riding on NFP (non-farm payrolls)'s “once-in-a-lifetime” big fat upward revision of employment figures for the 12 months that ended in March 2006, which will translate to an average of 236,000 jobs a month, or a whopping...