USD

The U.S. dollar gained a lot of ground against its major counterparts in yesterday’s trading, despite the lack of top-tier data from most major economies.

EUR/USD is back to testing the 1.3000 major psychological support while USD/JPY finally breached the 100.00 barrier. Better than expected U.S. initial jobless claims may have sparked a stronger than usual reaction in the markets, as the actual figure landed at 323K, lower than the estimated 333K in first-time claimants. The G7 meetings are set to take place starting today so watch out for potential gaps over the weekend.

EUR                  

The ECB monthly bulletin was the only report on the euro zone’s agenda yesterday and the release didn’t contain any surprises. The euro sold off against the dollar, which benefitted from strong initial jobless claims figures, and rallied against the Japanese yen. German trade balance and Italian industrial production figures are set for release in today’s European session so watch out for these reports.

GBP                                                                

As expected, the Bank of England kept monetary policy unchanged in their latest rate decision. The central bank maintained interest rates at 0.50% and their asset purchase program at the current 375 billion GBP level.  BOE Governor Mervyn King thought that there was no need to add stimulus for now as the British economy has shown signs of improvement and was able to avoid a recession for the first quarter of the year. UK manufacturing production came in stronger than expected and showed 1.7% growth, but this wasn’t enough to keep the pound afloat against the dollar in yesterday’s trading.

CHF                                                                

There were no reports released from Switzerland yesterday but the franc suffered a massive selloff against the U.S. dollar since the latter enjoyed a strong initial jobless claims report. There are no reports due from Switzerland today so USD/CHF could be sensitive to dollar flows once more.

JPY                                                                 

The Japanese yen lost a lot of ground to the U.S. dollar lately with USD/JPY breaching the 100.00 mark and even reaching 101.00 in today’s Asian session. Japanese current account was weaker than expected at 0.34 trillion JPY versus the estimated 0.48 trillion JPY surplus. The Economy Watchers Sentiment figure is due from Japan later today.

Commodity Currencies (AUD, CAD, NZD)

Although Australian and New Zealand jobs data both came in strong yesterday, the Aussie and the Kiwi were no match to dollar strength. AUD/USD broke below the key 1.0200 support while NZD/USD retreated upon pulling back to the .8480 area. Canada is next to release its jobs report today and a 14.8K rebound in hiring is projected, which could keep the jobless rate steady at 7.2%.

By Kate Curtis from Trader’s Way