Forex Blog

EUR/USD grew today from 1.5571 to 1.5573 making it a second gaining day this week, but it’s still trading below the Monday open rate (which is 1.5627). All fundamental releases were quite neutral today, so they couldn’t help much neither dollar nor euro. Forex market participants await FOMC rate decision today.

Durable goods orders remained unchanged in May after a 1% decrease in April — and according to the market analysts’ forecast it shouldn’t been changing.

New home sales dropped from 525k annual rate (revised down from 526k) in April to 512k in May. It wasn’t a surprise to the markets; the average forecast was 510k.

Crude oil inventories gained 0.8 million barrels last week, but are still near the lower boundary of the average range for this time of year.

EUR/USD posted its first daily decline this week today — it went down from 1.5528 to 1.5489. Even bad employment data didn’t help the euro to get higher against the U.S. dollar.

Initial jobless claims fell from 386k to 381k last week, but nevertheless were higher than 375k forecast.

May leading indicators rose 0.1% in May a similar growth in April and forecasted stagnation for this month.

Philadelphia Fed index decreased slightly in June — from -15.6 to -17.1. It was expected to rise to -10.

EUR/USD daily chart is currently showing a good possibility of a bearish breakout from the range traded since April 22. You can see the present range on this picture below:

If the next trading day closes below the current support line (which is near 1.5379 level), there is a great possibility of a fast drop on EUR/USD down to about 1.5000 rate. On the other hand it can fall back from the current level and continue trading within the range. Anyway if the range persists, a closing bar below the lower bond will mean a strong bearish breakout, while a close above the upper bond wouldn’t necessarily mean a bullish breakout.

EUR/USD trend: sell.
GBP/USD trend: sell.
USD/JPY trend: buy.
EUR/JPY trend: hold.

EUR/USD trend: buy.
GBP/USD trend: hold.
USD/JPY trend: hold.
EUR/JPY trend: buy.

EUR/USD fell by more than 60 pips today as the fundamental reports from U.S. signaled that the economy is improving there.

Construction spending was expected to fall by 0.6% in April; instead it was down only 0.4% after 1.1% drop in March.

ISM report on manufacturing sector of the economy showed that the PMI (purchase manager index) grew up from 48.6 in April to 49.6 in May. A drop to 48.0 was expected by the market analysts.

EUR/USD trend: sell.
GBP/USD trend: sell.
USD/JPY trend: buy.
EUR/JPY trend: buy.

EUR/USD made its biggest drop since May 7 today. The popular currency pair continued its decline that has started on Tuesday and will probably last until it reaches 1.5300-1.5400 levels. EUR/USD went down from 1.5647 to 1.5533.

Preliminary GDP for the first quarter of 2008 increased 0.9% — the same pace as the market analysts predicted and slightly faster than 0.6% growth in Q4 2007.

Initial jobless claims weren’t as good as traders were expecting — they rose from 368k (revised up from 365k) to 372k.

Crude oil inventories were down 8.8 million barrels last — this fact will probably keep oil prices up for the rest of the week.

EUR/USD trend: buy.
GBP/USD trend: buy.
USD/JPY trend: sell.
EUR/JPY trend: hold.

EUR/USD trend: buy.
GBP/USD trend: buy.
USD/JPY trend: hold.
EUR/JPY trend: hold.