Friday's strong close on Wall Street has currency markets flush with optimism to start the new week, sending the Yen lower as risk appetite returns to the markets. With such instigators as better than expected US existing home sales as well as some cheery commentary from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the US equity markets made solid gains that saw the S&P 500 close at a 10 month high. This wave of optimism carried over to Asian equities today, with the most Indexes up by almost 2%, however, the Chinese CSI 300 lagged behind early, but once it showed steady footing it was clear risk appetite would rule the day. The Yen crosses mostly saw lows on their respective opens and just headed higher from there. EUR/JPY opened for business at session lows of 135.23, and after a steady climb, topped out at just over 136.05. GBP/JPY's early low was near 155.60 and that level was quickly forgotten as the pair hit highs near 156.80. As can be expected in such market conditions, the Aussie and Kiwi made steady gains against the Yen as well, the AUD/JPY moved higher by over 100 pips to reach 79.70, and the NZD/JPY cruised higher by 60 pips to just touch 65.10.
Apart from the big Yen moves, and with no real data to spark a move, the market was quite subdued. EUR/USD perused in a slow 30 pip range between 1.4360 and 1.4330 and GBP/USD fared only slightly better as it moved between 1.6496 and 1.6543 to end the session net flat.
The Aussie Dollar did far better against the Dollar than did its aforementioned counterparts, starting the day at lows of 0.8360 and eventually ending up over 0.8410. The AUD/USD pair did lose some steam by day's end however, dropping to levels near 0.8380. Optimism is clearly fashionable once again, for how long though is anyone's guess.
Upcoming Economic Data Releases (London Session) prior expected
| 8/24/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Industrial New Orders SA (MoM) | JUN | -0.20% | 1.80% |
| 8/24/2009 | 9:00 | EC | Industrial New Orders SA (YoY) | JUN | -30.10% | -28.30% |
