Forex Weekly Wrap 8-21-09
Today’s market was a little confusing for traders as 2 key events took place at once…the Existing Home Sales Numbers and Ben Bernake’s speech in Wyoming. At first glance…the numbers that flashed across my screen looked really good for home sales…heck, it was a really good number! USD weakened…EUR and GBP/USD rallied…and then…after reading the speech from Ben Bernake, the USD quickly reversed. Why? Well, it’s the optimism that did it…trader’s are now starting to shift the view from “rates at zero” for a long period of time…to “maybe rates may go higher sooner rather than later” and this led to some support for the USD. On a day like today, with the DOW up over 100 points, we would expect a little bigger sell off in the USD…but Dr. Bernake came to the rescue.
The EUR/USD shot up to 1.4370 after the news, then dropped to 1.4275 shortly after. This level was previous resistance, and acted as good support and should act as good support going into Sunday evening. Resistance will be fierce in the 1.44 range.
The GBP/USD was an underperformer again today and gave us yet another opportunity to short the pair above the 1.66 level. Whether you were able to peel off a short or not is not the point…the point is the GBP is generally weak. And in the event the USD starts to gain some strength, the GBP/USD will be propelled to the 1.6300 level, and possibly to 1.6000 in the coming week(s).
The USD/JPY got a little of a boost today with the General uptick in the stock market but spent most of the day below 94.50 which still is good resistance. Support will come in at today’s low at 93.50 which is good support…now tested twice in the last 3 days.
Next week we have GDP numbers out of the US and GBP which will be the highlight towards the end of the week.
Have a good weekend!
Blake