The US Dollar continued to feel the pain in Asia, exacerbated by the one-two punch of two Dollar negative stories out of the UK.
The first story, out of the Financial Times was an opinion piece stating that the US needed to address the fact that it could lose its triple A rating. The second story was out of the BBC, which had quotes from Japanese opposition leaders stating that they would turn their back on US treasuries should they get power in Japan. The EUR/USD exploded on the news, blowing through 1.3700 to tap a high just over 1.3720 which represented a 7 week high for the single European Currency. The pair eventually came back to earth, trading closer to 1.3670 by sessions close. USD/JPY registered lows of 95.78 after a start close to 96.50, but the pair reversed after that low and was right back at opening levels by the time London was waking up. EUR/JPY slowly made its way back over the 132.00 level late in the day as well. With traders looking to buy into riskier products, it is easy to be negative on the US Dollar barring a reason for risk aversion. On that note, USD/CHF cascaded to a low of 1.0976, a level which that pair has not witnessed since early January, and the Aussie and Kiwi dollars continued to crawl higher....
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session) prior expected
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | Claimant Count Rate | APR | 4.50% | 4.70% |
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | Jobless Claims Change | APR | 73.7K | 85.0K |
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | Avg Earnings inc bonus 3M/YoY | MAR | 0.10% | -1.00% |
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | Avg Earnings ex bonus 3M/YoY | MAR | 3.20% | 3.00% |
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | ILO Unemployment Rate (3mths) | MAR | 6.70% | 6.90% |
| 5/13/2009 | 8:30 | UK | Manu.Unit Wage Cost (3Ms/YoY) | MAR | 10.00% | - - |
| 5/13/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Ind. Prod. sa (MoM) | MAR | -2.30% | -1.00% |
| 5/13/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Euro-Zone Ind. Prod. wda (YoY) | MAR | -18.40% | -17.60% |
| 5/13/2009 | 9:00 | UK | Bank of England Quarterly Inflation Report | 13-May |
