The price action in the NY session was lackluster to say the least as US equity and bond traders took the day off due to the President's Day holiday. Most of the FX majors moved in about a 50 pip high to low range and were sitting near their NY session open levels.
The only noteworthy economic report was Canadian international securities transactions which slipped a steeper than anticipated -2.8 billion in December, from -4.0 billion the prior month. Even this could not elicit much in the way of price action however.
EUR/USD was about 10 pips higher near the 1.2780/90 zone. The next important short-term support looks to be the 1.2730/20 intraday low and we would expect a barrier to upside near the 1.2830 mark (55hr SMA) initially. The yen crosses barely budged and USD/JPY was practically unchanged near 91.70/80 while EUR/JPY rose 10 pips towards the 117.20/30 area.
The next major piece of economic news is Japan's tertiary industry index due up at 2350GMT. The market is looking for a decline of -1.5% in December from -0.9% the prior month. Look for worse than anticipated results to likely usher in some yen weakness, in other words higher EUR/JPY and USD/JPY on the follow.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (Asia Session) prev est
- 2/16 23:50 GMT JN Tertiary Industry Index (MoM) DEC -0.90% -1.50%
- 2/17 0:30 GMT AU Reserve Bank's Board February Minutes 17-Feb
- 2/17 6:00 GMT JN Machine Tool Orders (YoY) JAN F -84.40% - -
