Market Commentaries

Sterling has come under increasingly sharp focus recently, as the U.K.’s divorce from the European Union approaches; scheduled for March 29th 2019. The FX market is often referred to as “reactive”, as opposed to “predictive” and that description appears to have been sustained, by the increased value of sterling versus its main peers, over recent

Yesterday, the intraday price range of EUR/GBP was remarkably small, given the sharp swings in other euro currency cross rates. In line with the price trend of late, sterling remained well bid yesterday morning and the pair reversed a big part of the post-Nowotny gains early in the session. The pair spiked also higher from

Following the scheme of the prior weeks, the week was a mixed bag for the world markets on our weekly watch list. It saw half posted gains, half losses and an epitome of optimism. Starting with the American markets, stocks rose on a weekly basis as US companies reported better than expected results. However, it

Unemployment claims reverse most of previous weekís drop. In the week ended the 14th of July, US initial jobless claims edged up again. Initial claims rose by 34 000, from an upwardly revised 352,000 to 386,000, while an increase to 365,000 was forecast. In the previous week, initial jobless claims dropped sharply, to its lowest

Yesterday, trading in the EUR/GBP cross rate was confined to a tight range near the recent lows. The EUR/GBP cross rate jumped higher upon the publication of the Minutes of the July BoE meeting. On the 5th of July, the Bank of England decided restart its asset purchase program by announcing an additional £50 billion

U.S. stocks rose for a second day after companies from Intel Corp. to Honeywell International Inc. reported profit that beat estimates and housing starts increased to the fastest rate in almost four years. Asian stocks rose, with the benchmark index headed toward its biggest gain in almost three weeks, after U.S. housing starts jumped to

Yesterday, the EUR/GBP followed largely the intra-day movements of EUR/USD, but at the margin sterling again did slightly better, as it set a new low. However, in a daily perspective, the price move was insignificant. EUR/GBP closed at 0.78529, marginally up from 0.7849 previously. The lower-than expected UK CPI was unable to leave its traces

Recently not much happened in the USD/JPY cross rate. Trading was confined to the 79.00 big figure, mostly with a cautiously negative bias. Global sentiment on risk remained fragile and core (US) bond yields were again on a downward path, reducing the incentive to look for yield pick-up from trades funded in the Japanese currency.

Gold recovered to close marginally higher in a quiet trading session, as weak US retail sales cut into the dollar’s gains ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman’s Congressional testimony which could provide the latest clue on monetary policies. Gold holdings  of SPDR gold trust, the largest ETF backed by the precious metal, declined to 1,266.11 tons,