The new week started out with a much stronger Yen as the G20 meeting ended with all members nodding their collective heads that the global economy was bad, but with no real plan of action to combat it. Although not many traders expected a concise blue print of measures to fix the problem, poor liquidity and a poor US showing in equities on Friday helped push the USD/JPY to an open about 50 pips lower at 96.55, subsequently followed by a 95.93 low. As the day continued and Japan's Nikkei flipped from being down 3% to up 3%, so did the Yen move, as USD/JPY proceeded to climb to hit a high of 97.54. Among the other detriments to the Yen was the weaker than expected Japanese GDP data which showed that Japan was in fact in its first recession in seven years. EUR/JPY bounced the same way as the USD/JPY move, opening lower at 121.32, falling to a 120.20 low, and climbing to highs near 122.87 before exiting the session one big figure lower than that high water mark.
The Euro has been prisoner to moves in EUR/JPY and EUR/GBP as of late, and today was no different as EUR/USD opened lower, drifted lower to 125.14 and clawed back to levels just above 126.00. EUR/GBP followed the same pattern, trading in a 0.8554 to 0.8515 range. The GBP/USD chart looked similar to all of the above charts as it opened lower at 1.4730, drifted lower to 1.4658, and nudged higher to 1.4778. The UK is loaded with data releases this week, including retail sales and inflation numbers, but most importantly Wednesday's minutes from the BoE rate decision of a few weeks back which could offer clues to future bank moves.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session):
- 11/17/2008 6:30 FR Bank of France Bus. Sentiment OCT 87 85
- 11/17/2008 8:00 GE ECB's Tumpel-Gugerell Holds Speech in Frankfurt 17-Nov
- 11/17/2008 8:50 GE ECB's Weber Holds Speech in Frankfurt 17-Nov
- 11/17/2008 10:00 EC Euro-Zone Trade Balance SEP -9.3B -6.0B
- 11/17/2008 10:00 EC Euro-Zone Trade Balance sa SEP -6.1B -5.7B
