Well, well, well. The EURUSD pair or the fiber as what traders call it in the streets appears to have broken out from a rectangle or consolidation. You see, the had been trending up from a low of 1.1876 last June 7 to a high of 1.3334 in August before correcting. All along I thought that the pair would already reverse but it did not. What it did was it only corrected to its 50% Fibonacci retracement level. It then continued to range or trade sideways until yesterday where it broke out to the upside when it finally breached the 1.2900 hurdle. However, the pair seems to be meeting some temporary resistance at 1.3000. If and when it moves past this number, chances are it would once again revisit its previous high just above 1.3300. Given the upside breakout, I can say that there is now a higher probability that the euro will move higher against the US dollar in the near term.
Germany’s September Zew economic sentiment index came in sour, unexpectedly falling to -4.7 (vs. 10.7) from from 14.0. The same sentiment index for the entire euro zone also slipped to 4.4 from 15.8. The slide in confidence can be attributed to the wide budget cuts done by the governments that make up the economic zone. Remember that the zone was being plagued with a credit crisis. One way to plug the countries’ deficit holes would be to drastically slash their spending. A cut in spending would obviously limit the business activity in the region but given Europe’s present fiscal situation, such move is really warranted.
Despite this, the euro still managed to outmaneuver the greenback thanks to the better than expected US core retail sales. Core retail sales in August grew by 0.6% which is twice of the market’s 0.3% consensus.
No high impact economic reports are due from the euro zone for the rest of this week. The euro, however, could take its cue from the releases from the United States. Today, the Us will publish its Empire State manufacturing index and its August industrial production. The former is seen to have reached 8.7 from 7.1 while the latter is expected to have increased again by 0.3%. The expected improvement in the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index (from -7.7 to 0.9) which will be due tomorrow and the projected jump in the Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment (from 68.9 to 70.3) could also induce some risk taking. Watch out for these reports.
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