The Forex Market Insight Report shows charts on different major currencies and commodities, with brief commentaries on how new data releases and news cause movements in the market.

Headlines:

  • ECB raises interest rates by 0.25% in the Eurozone to 1.25% to curb inflation fears with ECB president
  • Trichet commenting that rates are likely to rise over time but didn’t give any indication as to another rise next meeting
  • BoE keeps rates unchanged at 0.5%
  • Australian unemployment rose yet again with +38k new jobs and a reduction in the unemployment rate to 4.9%
  • Oil breaks new highs as the Libyan issue escalates.
  • USD/JPY falls from highs as another 7.1 magnitude quake strikes.

AU/DUSD
The Australian economy yet again continues to shine with great jobs numbers released yesterday supporting the AUD during the Asian session. It drifted lower as EUR failed to excite, but with the support confirmed at 1.0400/10 traders are still happy playing the buy the dip game and looking for new highs into next week.

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XAU/USD
Without any changes to the worldwide economy and continuing tensions in the Middle East, gold played the consolidation game at record highs last night. Traders are still happy to play from the long side unless we see a break of 1448.00/1450.00 which could signal a push back to 1,440.00. In the meantime they are targeting 1475.00/1480.00 for the next level.

EUR/USD
With the ECB doing what was expected and raising rates by 0.25% it was a bit of a non-even in the EUR and it drifted lower to solid medium-term support at 1.4250. It is incredible how on such a regular basis markets respect the levels and so long as 1.4240/50 holds, traders are content to play it from the long side looking to take out 1.4350 eventually.

GBP/USD
GBP/USD was relatively quiet last night as recently released mixed data caused the BoE to wait yet another month before changing interest rates from record lows. Traders lacked direction initially, but the support found down towards 1.6260 has kept them preferring to play the long side unless that level breaks, buying the dip looking for an eventual break topside.

USD/JPY
USD/JPY has broken down through the recent uptrend but support was found at the previous high of 84.60 as mentioned yesterday, which is now become the critical level in many trader’s minds. It looks like USD/JPY is now consolidating in the 84.60-85.50 range for the moment waiting for the break of this to give the next signal of direction.

AUD/JPY
AUD/JPY confirmed the uptrend yesterday and also allowed patient traders to get long at the right levels as 88.00/10 held strong. Traders are now seemingly happy to stay long unless that level breaks, initially targeting the recent highs of 89.50 and then onwards to 90.00 in the next few sessions. A break of 88.00 could be quite bearish and 87.00 would be the target.

Oil
Like a broken record Oil continues higher as 109.50 broke and new recent highs were easily attained. As has been previously mentioned, traders are still happy to be long and buyers on the dip until such time that the tensions in the Middle East abate and that doesn’t look like any time soon. Previous resistance at 109.50 now looking to provide support on any pull-back.

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