Forex Blog

EUR/USD reached a new record high level at 1.5913 today, but after some positive fundamental data was released in U.S. the currency pair went down, as the dollar started to regain strength on the Forex market. ECB’s decision to hold the interest rates at 4% also improved dollar’s positions on the market.

Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell by 53k the last week — from the revised 410k value to 357k. A fall to 383k has been expected by the market analysts.

February U.S. trade balance deficit came out to be far worse than the majority of the investors expected — $62.3 billion, up from January’s $58.2 billion. It was expected to go down to $57.4 billion.

Treasury budget deficit was lower than the expected $70.3 billion value in March. It was $48.1 billion — better than the last year’s $96.3 billion deficit for the same month.

The February Treasury budget deficit beat the last signs of life out of the fadollar today as the released numbers were far worse than the most pessimistic expectations of the economic strategists. The budget deficit was at $175,6 billion, while the forecasted value was at $170,0 billion. Last year February budget deficit was at $120,0 billion. That’s an astonishing $55 billion (45.8%) increase of the deficit in a year-to-year comparison.

EUR/USD hit its new record value on Forex today after the news on the budget were released. The currency pair started at 1.5341 today and reached the 1.5526 level soon after the release.

Crude oil inventories report for the last week added a little positive to the markets situation today, they increased by 6.2 million barrels compared with the previous week.

The dollar showed a mild growth against the euro today even after the trade balance report showed the widening of the deficit. Against the Great Britain pound the U.S. dollar also went up, with GBP/USD hitting the lowest value since march - 1.9481, but lost the most of the gain after the trade balance release.

The U.S. international trade balance deficit increased in November from $57.8 billion to $63.1 billion as the imports grew ten times faster than exports. Both average export and import prices rose by 0.3% - slowly than in October.

Treasury budget numbers for December were also reported today showing the surplus of more than $48.2 billion - a higher surplus than in December 2006 (almost $42.0 billion), but still lower than the expected $52.0 surplus for December 2007.

EUR/USD was ranging today inside the yesterday’s rate limits which were formed with the bullish tendencies triggered by the Tuesday FOMC meeting’s statement. Main operational interest rate in the United States was cut by 25 basis points, which equals 0.25% - from 4.50% to 4.25%, while futures markets for the interest rate predicted a 0.50% cut.

Today came out the information on the international trading balance deficit for October 2007 - it increased from $57.1B (a revised value from $56.5B) to $57.8B, while only a mild growth to $57.0B was expected. The reason for the deficit growth was in the fact that imports growing faster than the exports.

U.S. crude oil inventories already made it a habit to drop every week, like there are not enough reasons for the oil prices rally yet. Last week inventories fell by 0.7 million barrels after 8 million decline in a previous week.

Meanwhile federal budget deficit appeared above the average expectation value of $90.0B. In November it went up from the October’s $55.5B to $98.2B.

U.S. dollar started its decline against other majors almost with the beginning of today’s Asian trading session. EUR/USD broke through 1.4600 level but fell from it several times. Overall trading day for EUR/USD can be described as the “highly volatile correction”.

The only important (to Forex market) economical data from U.S. today is Federal budget deficit figures by U.S. Treasury. It came out better expected - lower by almost 4 billion dollars than consensus number, landing at -$55.5B. It is a good result, considering September $111.5B budget surplus, but it is worse than previous October -$49.3B.

Budget results report’s effect on currency market will be mostly determined by traders’ reaction; positive or negative, it will depend on their own interpretation of the budget deficit influence on the FOMC’s decisions.

This week EUR/USD rallied to the new historically high levels breaking above 1.3900 level (and staying there for some time). Possible rate cuts series in the nearest future by Fed caused this dollar fall. Almost 75% of expert currency trading analysts questioned about Fed’s decision on 18th of September are sure that Fed will cut rates at least by 0.25%. Many expect 1.00% by the end of 2007. This heats the stocks market, but cause dollar to go south against EUR, JPY and ПИЗю

U.S. Treasury reported its monthly statement on U.S. budget showing $116.9 billions deficit - more than $30 billions worse than expected and more than twice worse than previous year for August. Nevertheless, EUR/USD is fluctuating near 1.3900 level and didn’t jump up on this news.

Initial jobless claims for the previous week came out at 319k - better than expected 325k, but still worse than previous 315k.

Euro still holds below the 1.3700 level after a major crisis on the world financial markets and currency interventions made by European and Japanese central banks. Dollar’s fundamental future isn’t looking bright, but from the technical side EUR/USD is turning the trendline down currently.
Yesterday’s initial jobless claims news release wasn’t very encouraging - 316,000 new claims - almost 10k higher than expected. This is a bad sign as the employment market looked better previous weeks.
Today export and import prices indexes were released - 2.8% and 1.5% respectively, which both much higher than expected numbers and previous months’ numbers.
Budget deficit in June came out at $36.3 billion dollars, while experts expected $34.0 billion dollars deficit.
Overall fundamental data this week came out worse than several last weeks and this can affect Fed’s decisions on interest rates change.

Today on Forex EUR/USD showed us a moderate decline. Bears were happy to see the new two month low at 1.3312. Ten minutes ago, U.S. Treasury reported its monthly statement about the U.S. budget showing its deficit at 67.7B (billion) level which is an indeed a great sum of money, but slightly lower than predicted by experts - 68.0B. Which might positively affect dollar on Forex.