Euro Corrects to the Downside, JPY Runs Weaker

Market Brief

The Asian session started the week in green. The majortiy of stock markets extended gains overnight. The Nikkei 225 advanced by 0.62%, Hang Seng , Shanghai’s composite and Taiex added 0.34%, 0.30% and 0.86% respectively. Korean’s Kospi and ASX200 index retreated, while the US stock index futures were little changed.

Overnight, Chinese January non-manufacturing index slightly increased. The Australian inflation remained in line with expectations, the monthly and yearly building approvals fell since December, while the January job advertisements improved to -0.9% from -3.8% since last month’s reading. In New Zealand, the commodity price index added 0.3%, reaching its 10-month high after 6 months of consecutive increase.

In US, the NFP figures slightly increased; yet fell short of market expectations. In January, the US added 157’000 jobs (excluding farm, private household and government workers), lower than the 165’000 expected. The US unemployment remained stable at 7.9% (vs. 7.8% for last two previous months). The US stocks didn’t react to data, Gold spiked to 1,682.27, while CHF and JPY consolidated.

Swiss franc hit its two-week low versus EUR, and ten-month low against USD. USDJPY reached a new high at 92.91, before falling back to bids at 92.50. AUDUSD registered a fresh year-low at 1.0361, while USDCAD failed to break the strong 1.00 resistance, and retreated to 99.60 / 80 zone since Friday. EURUSD rallied to 1.3711 Friday afternoon, yet corrected to the downside after some profit taking and position adjustments on the fears that Mario Draghi may sound concerned about the Euro strengthening on Thursday’s ECB policy meeting.

Today, the focus is on the Swiss UBS 4Q Real Estate Bubble Index, Spanish Unemployment m/m, EC February Sentix Investor Confidence, UK January PMI Construction, Euro-Zone PPI m/m and y/y, and US Dec Factory Orders.