Currency Point: Trade review
Closed: Short AUD/USD
Closing out the short call, the spike caused by US-China trade issues pushed pair into the 69c handle as the near-term uncertainty around the further imposition of tariffs hit the AUD.
However, it also now creates upside risk as a ‘deal’ (real or otherwise) will likely cause a spike in the opposite direction – risk.
Secondly, the Fed as expected has held the line around its current position on the Federal Funds rate and maintained its slight hiking bias this in my view is ‘holding’ the USD across the board.
The RBA as expect held off cutting rate at its May meeting something we expected.
However, they are more ‘neutral’ than the market expected and from my view if they are to cut rate it’s not likely to happen until August, which moderates near term moves in the AUD.
Thus, closing out the short call as pair is likely to drift now and should moderate in a tight range of 70-71c. There are better value trades elsewhere.
Free Reports:
New idea: Short EUR/JPY
Entry: Y123.7 with a Stop Loss at Y126.00 with a target of Y119.00
Two sides to this trade – first the JPY side and its ‘safe-haven’ position.
JPY will benefit if trade tensions persist and US market volatility continues to shift up as it has in the past few weeks. In fact, markets generally are ‘underweight’ volatility on the idea central bank policy will save the day. However, the past two weeks has shown that this ‘white knight’ scenario isn’t as ‘certain’ as markets have price in and the potential for increased volatility in the short term needs to be respected – a JPY positive.
Flipping to the EUR side what you might not be aware of is a mid-May deadline related to potential auto tariffs on European exports. If the US was to move on European car
manufactures the EUR will spike lower.
Then there are the general headwinds to the EUR that continue to persist – economic growth remains underwhelming.
Finally, the EUR is clearly being used as a carry trade funding source, several reports over the past month have shown a solid increase in corporate issuance of debt with the EUR a core currency of issuance – EUR negative.
The risk to this trade is the flip side of all stated scenarios, volatility reducing, no tariffs, the Eurozone actually seeing economic growth etc. which is why your stop-loss is core to this trade.