By CountingPips.com
The US dollar has been lower in forex trading today against the other major currencies on a day without major news releases. The dollar has been losing ground to the European common currency as the EUR/USD pair is close to touching the 1.3150 exchange rate for the first time in almost a week and has popped its head back above the 200-day moving average.
The dollar has been also trading lower versus the British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Canadian dollar, Australian
The US stock markets, meanwhile, had a winning session today with the Dow gaining by approximately 83 points, the Nasdaq increasing 20 points and the S&P 500 up by over 11 points at the end of the US trading session. Oil has edged higher to $91.73 per barrel while gold futures have ticked up by $1.30 to $1385.30 per ounce.
There were no major economic releases scheduled today so most eyes were on the Portuguese bond auction that wound up seeing healthy demand and a total of $1.62 billion of bonds sold. The better than expected bond sales boosted the euro against most of its currency rivals and helped to soothe some Eurozone contagion debt fears, at least temporarily.
Michael Wright, analyst at DailyFX commented on today’s movements saying, “Portugal’s successful bond auction today helped equity prices continue their northbound journey. The Portuguese government sold 1.25 billion euros in 3 and 10 year bonds which exceeded the amount offered, indicating investor appetite was positive. However, it is worth noting that the 5.4 percent yield was higher than the previous auction. Going forward, market participants will closely monitor the debt auctions in Spain and Italy which are set to offer 3 and 6 billion euros respectively on Thursday.”
Forex Chart – EUR/USD Daily
The euro has traded higher versus the dollar in trading for three straight days after a sharp decline last week . The EUR/USD pair reached a high today of 1.3144 before retreating a bit lower and now holds near the 1.3135 level. The EUR/USD has managed to pop back over the significant 200-day moving average (red line) in today’s ascension.
