Another day, another beating for the Japanese Yen....The Yen hit a three month low against the US Dollar as its safe-haven status dissolved with mounting concerns that the Japanese economy is worsening.
With Japanese investors now putting their money into foreign bonds, the USD/JPY pair came three pips shy of the 98.00 level after starting the session at lows of 97.30, many are looking to the near term for the pair to break the 100.00 level. Conversely, with the Japanese fiscal year end at the close of March approaching, many expect Japanese investors to repatriate funds, and that would possibly slow the wild descent of the Yen. The EUR/JPY pair began the session at 123.82 lows and gained a big figure to just over 124.88, before a slide to 124.10 in early London trading.
EUR/USD showed some life in Asia, popping to just over 1.2760, but the momentum failed, mostly in lieu of poor data, including reports from S&P questioning the ratings of the Ukraine and Greece, and the pair was just under the 1.2700 as of this writing. GBP/USD made a run at 1.4300, but fell short by about 10 pips on gloomy BoE comments of possible 10% unemployment, worse credit markets, and a longer and deeper recession that once thought. The pound was closer to 1.4200 as London awoke.
The markets will have to digest a bunch of data later in the day as Germany has unemployment, and the Euro Zone has consumer confidence numbers out.....The US then steps up with Durable Goods, and initial jobless claims.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session):
| 2/26/2009 | 7:00 | UK | Nat'wide House prices sa (MoM) | FEB | -1.30% | -1.30% |
| 2/26/2009 | 7:00 | UK | Nat'wide House prices nsa(YoY) | FEB | -16.60% | -17.10% |
| 2/26/2009 | 7:00 | GE | ILO Unemployment Rate | JAN | 7.20% | 7.30% |
| 2/26/2009 | 7:10 | GE | GfK Consumer Confidence Survey | MAR | 2.2 | 2 |
| 2/26/2009 | 8:55 | GE | Unemployment Change (000's) | FEB | 56K | 60K |
| 2/26/2009 | 8:55 | GE | Unemployment Rate (s.a) | FEB | 7.80% | 7.90% |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Business Climate Indicator | FEB | -3.16 | -3.2 |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Consumer Confidence | FEB | -31 | -31 |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Economic Confidence | FEB | 68.9 | 68.5 |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Indust. Confidence | FEB | -34 | -34 |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Services Confidence | FEB | -22 | -22 |
| 2/26/2009 | 10:30 | UK | Bank of England's King, Tucker, Haldane, Bailey to testify | 26-Feb |
