Equity markets and high yielding currencies continue to push lower as comments from Eurozone officials fail to inspire optimism (even in the face of some fairly positive macroeconomic releases and cuts in interest rates from several major economies). The main assertion so far has been an apparent confirmation that we will not see a two-tier European Union going forward, and this is probably the only thing holding up the Euro from retesting its yearly lows.
Yesterday’s ECB rate decision (to lower the Eurozone base rate by 0.25% to 1%) was largely ignored by markets as the ECB says there are no plans to increase bond purchases in the troubled EU countries. The rate cut was generally expected, but the statement about bond purchases was not, so the end result was a down-day in equities and a rally in the US Dollar. One positive was that the ECB essentially guaranteed additional liquidity for regional banks for the next 3 years but this was viewed as little more than a footnote to the main stories. Pay special attention to European bond markets, as any major volatility here will send the Euro much lower.
Macro releases out of Asia yesterday came with the third quarter GDP numbers out of Japan, which were revised lower to +5.6%, which was a slight improvement on expectations. The data continues to be volatile, however, as the second quarter figures showed a -2.0% decline, so, while the numbers are positive, their overall credibility is somewhat questionable. The Japanese Yen remains at elevated levels when we will at the longer term historical averages but we have started to see a short term uptrend in the USD/JPY and this could continue as long as the macro data remains stable.
In China, monthly CPI was released, coming in at 4.2%, which is the lowest level in over a year and much lower than the previous figures (5.5% for the month of October). The global economic slowdown is clearly taking its toll on Chinese exports and this latest release is leading many analysts to speculate that we will see the central bank start to cut interest rates next year.
In the coming session, we will see the University of Michigan sentiment survey out of the US, German CPI, and finally PPI and Trade Balance data out of the UK. Price activity is likely to be dominated by order flows but any lackluster comments from Eurozone officials will likely ensure that markets close near their lows for the week.
Technicals:
The EUR/USD is moving lower once again with prices now caught in a clear downtrend channel on the hourly charts. Fibonacci levels here match up nicely with historical support turned resistance, so we are expecting the 38.2% retracement of the latest decline to contain prices in the 1.3380 area. Short term sell positions can be entered here as the latest rally on the 5 minute charts appears to be running out of steam.
The S&P 500 had a massive drop within 4$ of our sell recommendation issued yesterday. The downward move surpassed our target at 1245 en route to finding support at the 161.8% Fibonacci extension seen at 1230. Prices need some time to work off the oversold indicator readings, we expect a slow downward drift into the close of the week.
