United States Dollar: A fairly quiet day for Sterling and the Greenback yesterday as the pair traded within recent ranges. Cable has been range bound recently, seeing movement within a 100 pips between 1.6000 / 1.6100. Yesterday saw no change to this. The currency pair traded within an 80 pip range, still feeding of last Friday’s releases and the weekend’s data. A small dip below 1.6000 to 1.5990 was seen, but this was only for a short period of time. There isn”t much to report on with regards to yesterday’s data, but today does see a lot more action. The releases to keep an eye on in the UK would be the CPI and the BoE inflation letter. The important US data today would be the retail sales figures. It could be a case that the recent ranges may be broken on the back of today’s releases. GBP/USD opens today’s session at 1.6039.
– Expected range today in the GBP/USD: rate of 1.5940 to 1.6150
– Expected range today in the GBP/EUR: rate of 1.1790 to 1.1960
– Expected range today in the GBP/AUD: rate of 1.5940 to 1.6130
– Expected range today in the GBP/NZD: rate of 2.1110 to 2.1360
Euro: It was a slightly busier session for the single currency yesterday. Not a great start to the week for the Euro as it continued to slip against the USD and the GBP. This is partly down to no deal being struck over the weekend to save German bank WestLb. The European commission has set today as the deadline for it to be revamped in exchange for a state bailout. Watch this space. The rest was down to the news on Greek and Irish bank debt. The Pound gained around 40 pips against the Euro and the Greenback advanced around 60 pips on the back of this. Support came in for the Euro during US trade with Asian and Middle Eastern central banks buying at the lows. As mentioned before, today sees a great deal more data than it did yesterday. The main releases today come from Germany and sees prelim GDP q/q and ZEW Economic Sentiment. GBP/EUR is just short of the big figure 1.1900 this morning.
Aussie and Kiwi Dollars: The rumours surrounding a low inflation figure from China yesterday turned out to be well-founded. The Aussie and Kiwi, which had risen against the Greenback on this rumour yesterday, saw further gains as China CPI came in at 4.9% against an expected 5.3%. The RBA minutes also did the Australian Dollar no harm. AUD/USD saw movement within 1.0010 / 1.0060 range yesterday and NZD/USD ranged between 0.7545 / 0.7585. Sterling has however gained against the anitpodean currencies. A modest 45 pip gain for GBP/AUD has been seen overnight. There has been more of a jump for GBP/NZD as it has gained 100 pips. The currency pairings open this morning at 1.6027 and 2.1267 respectively.
