Key Forex Wrap-Up Notes:
- Japan trade balance -0.71 trillion
- New Zealand credit card spending y/y 4.5%
- German Ifo Business climate 106.7
Currency markets opened this week on a subdued note, with the lack of any clear fundamentals, along with the overbearing Greek election on Sunday. There was no major fundamental news out of Asia, which left the broader theme from last week’s ECB’s QE in play. However, the Yen managed to ease back during early Asian trading while the Australian and Kiwi dollars continued to remain weak against the Greenback.
The European markets did not have any major news releases with the exception of the German Ifo business climate, which managed to meet estimates and slightly upbeat from last month’s reading. Greece was, however, the clear show stealer as exit polls continued to show the left wing Syriza party taking a majority over the current incumbent government. With Syriza all set to form the new Government, the focus will be on debt restructuring more than anything else, despite the over reaction from all sides about Grexit.
While the Euro declined earlier in the day, EURUSD managed to pare its losses to rise back above 1.12 from lows of 1.1097. EURGBP was also showing signs of a modest lift off as the pair managed to rise from the lows of 0.7405 rising as much as 0.75 at the time of writing.
The GBPUSD, as with most other currencies were trading within a range on lack of any fundamentals. The US trading session is relatively quiet and the lack of any data is likely to see most of the currencies drift with no clear direction ahead of the key FOMC statement later this week including GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2014 from the UK as well as the US.
The US Dollar index was looking weak at the time of writing trading near 95.17 after opening the day 95.85.
There wasn’t much of the movement from the precious metals side as Gold weakened towards the lows of 1285 intraday after hitting the highs of $1300 last week. Crude Oil futures were lifted after opening the day lower on major news releases.
