News and views
USD favoured. US equities suffered at the open, marking time until the final hour when a strong finish saw the S&P500 close down only 0.1%. Signals regarding weak consumer spending from McDonald’s and Apple earlier discouraged the ‘shootists’. Banks fared positively throughout, closing 2.2% higher. Ireland was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s, to AA (negative). Fitch, on the other hand, made supportive comments. Latvia was put on negative watch due to devaluation risk. Commodities were largely stable, apart from copper losing 0.9%. US 3mth Libor was 2bp higher at 0.65%, interrupting a three month long slide. US 10yr treasuries were again punished, gaining 7bp, fears of a H209 policy rate hike mounting. Rising expectations for higher US yields continued to deter USD shorts, and the dollar index nudged 0.2% higher.
The Ireland downgrade hurt an already heavy EUR, which fell 2 cents to 1.38 during the London session, but it rebounded to 1.3920 during the NY session. GBP fell by a similar magnitude to 1.5805, but recovered strongly to be ahead for the 24 hours at 1.6070. Supportive reports included Lloyds expecting to repay bailout funds, and Barclays supposedly planning to sell Barclays Global Investors to Blackrock. USD/JPY did nothing, ranging sideways between 98.20 and 98.75.
AUD fell abruptly at the London open to 0.7830, only recovering to 0.7900 during NY.
NZD closed the domestic session at 0.6280, falling to 0.6150 before a recovery to 0.6200. The AUD/NZD cross ratcheted 50 pips higher to 1.2750.
No US data to report
Euroland Sentix investor confidence improves from –34 to –27 in June, reflecting stronger reads on both the current situation and expectations. However it is worth noting that in Dec 2008, both current and expectations were around –42; six months on, expectations have risen more than 43 pts but the current index is down a further 9 points. It seems that the stronger stock market, and policy-makers’ response to the financial crisis are raising hopes that things can get better, even though respondents are clearly aware the current growth picture in Europe is dire.
German factory orders flat in April. March was revised up slightly but the annual rate continued to plunge, from –26.5% yr to –37.1% yr. Other back revisions were unfavourable. These numbers imply further weakness ahead for German factory output, currently down just –20.4% yr.
Canadian housing starts up 9.2% in May. This followed a 20% fall in April, so the trend is still downwards. Over the past year, starts fell 42.4% yr.
Outlook
The downtrend since last Wednesday is intact and targets 0.6130 initially. Selling rallies to 0.6250 is our preferred strategy today, ultimately looking for a move below 0.6000. While New Zealand’s event calendar is bare, Australia’s business conditions survey at 13:30 NZT is important for AUD, and some contagion is possible.
