EURUSD down by 10% in 2015

On the 30^th of December, US’s National Association of Realtors announced that pending home sales went down by 0.9% for the month of November, markets expecting a 0.5% upturn. If we look at 2014’s November, the figure is 2.7% higher in 2015.
On the last day of 2015, the analysis showed a 10% loss in the Euro against the USD for the whole year, but not as high as the 12% loss in 2014. During the 31^st of December the major traded just below the 1.0900 handle, but not even close to 2015’s lows under 1.0500.

On the whole, monetary policy divergences had taken a toll on the EUR/USD. ECB (European Central Bank) announced a number of stimulus measures, while in the meantime Fed raised rates in December as part of the normalization process they started. From the technical analysis’s point of view, breaking the long term support at 1.20 was one of the major points of last year. During the global financial crisis back in the late 2000’s the trend broke under the 1.20 handle but it always corrected higher. In January 2015, it lost more than 800 pips breaking decisively under the long term support line.

2016’s perspectives are grim from China’s side, the further slowdown in its manufacturing sector intensifying worries for the second largest economy in the world as we speak. Latest reports show that December’s activity is still on the downslope for the 5^th month in a row, as well as exports. As the global economy is slowly decaying, China’s economic growth has slowed mostly due to the turmoil in stock markets and the overcapacity in factories. PBoC (People’s Bank of China) expects that 2015 will have the slowest growth rate in the last 25 years. After a 7.3% growth in 2014, analysts expect a 6.9% expansion for 2015 and an even slower pace in 2016 (6.8%). Friday’s release shows that the manufacturing sector stumbled at the end of 2015, with the official PMI (Purchasing Manager’s Index) printing up to 49.7 in December, just abode November’s 49.6.

Gold prices registered little change in the last session of 2015, still posting monthly and yearly declines. February futures printed just under 0.1% higher, registering $1,061.30 per ounce. Officials announced a 1.4% loss last week, a 0.5% decline in December and a 10% fall over the course of 2015 marking the third year with continuous loss. 2015 was a tough year for the yellow metal amid worries over China’s economy, the weakness in commodities and a stronger USD because of Fed’s rate hike.