The action in the NY session was reminiscent of what we've seen pretty much the entire week here. The USD was higher against the majors while JPY crosses got crushed again. The coordinated -50 bps rate cut by six major global central banks initially had stocks jumping for joy. The hesitation to take equities higher was palpable as stocks went back and forth from negative to positive multiple times. Heavy selling on good volume into the close, however, saw US stocks shed about -2% on the day.
JPY crosses followed (or lead?) the move lower. USD/JPY plunged more than -90 pips into a close near the 99.85/90 zone. The 100.00 mark proved to be a major pivot and we would expect a move back above there to see some decent strength. EUR/JPY plunged more than -170 pips towards the 136.40 area. Look for JPY crosses to get punished some more overnight if Asia stock markets follow-through on the price action in NY. We would expect USD/JPY to retest today's 98.60 low while EUR/JPY should see towards 134.15 on weakness in equities.
The UK's decision to bail out a plethora of banks with more than $80 billion coupled with the market view that the BOE will cut rates another -25 bps on top of today's -50 bps slash had GBP on the mat the entire NY session. GBP/USD was crushed more than -250 pips and was sitting near the 1.7285/90 zone as the session came to a close. The low was near 1.7260 and we believe a move into the 1.7200 zone would provide a good buying opportunity.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (Asia Session):
- 10/8/2008 23:50 GMT JN Machine Orders (MoM) AUG -3.90% -2.70%
- 10/8/2008 23:50 GMT JN Machine Orders YOY% AUG -4.70% -2.20%
- 10/9/2008 0:00 GMT AU Consumer Inflation Expectation OCT 4.40% - -
- 10/9/2008 0:30 GMT AU Unemployment Rate SEP 4.10% 4.30%
- 10/9/2008 0:30 GMT AU Participation Rate SEP 65.20% 65.20%
- 10/9/2008 0:30 GMT AU Employment Change SEP 14.6K 0.0K
