FED, BOE in Focus
Tariffs and any other firing with the aid of Trump drove headlines final week.
Trump wasn’t willing to give up his trade war talk one bit as he specified trade surplus with Canada and was also reputed to weigh out forcing levies on specific products imported from China. Trump has earlier fired his secretary of state Rex Tillerson and now has replaced him by previous CIA director Mike Pompeo, a renowned Iran hawk. The unfilled CIA director’s post was filled in by Gina Haspel who will be agencies first female head.
Gold was constrained by worries about trade war and forthcoming rate hike in the anticipated FOMC meeting, hitting a low of 1309 before concluding at 1313.50
Likewise EURUSD was weak following the wait and watch method promoted by Draghi. Incompetence of EURUSD to take the 1.25 level too quickened selling for EURUSD concluding the week at 1.2290.
GBPUSD was flat last week with no recent Brexit news as traders looked to The US Dollar and financial markets for direction. GBPUSD closed last week at 1.3942.
USDJPY was clearly lower last week by trialing support at 105.50 yet again. Political ambiguities helped Yen benefit against Dollar.
USDCAD kindled yet again after picking support close to 1.28, BoC highlighting worries about NAFTA made CAD weaken and USDCAD winded up the week at 1.3096.
FOMC should take the spotlight the coming week with a rate hike an almost certain. Markets will however look to the wordings used in the monetary statement to get an understanding of the future hike proposals. At the stage fed rate hikes of more than 3 this year looks an outside possibility with an institution filled with doves and President Trump himself the biggest of them.
Gold is set to test the 1305 support again in the forthcoming week, with the major support stretched out to 1280. Similar to the before scenarios this could be another classic scenario of doing one on the rumor and exactly opposite after the news. If the monetary statement sticks on to only 3 hikes this year Gold should find support and look to test 1341 yet again.
EURUSD was weak last week but the bullish image is still flawless with robust support existing at around 1.22.
GBPUSD looks like it has completed the correction after it had rallied above 1.43 in January 2018. GBPUSD found support just above the 50% retracement of the Nov ’17 – Jan ’18 rally that existed at 1.3685 and now has broken out of the triangle formation to the upside. Next prompt support exists at 1.3900 and 1.3800. Host of economic data from UK is set to be released this week with Inflation data on Tuesday followed by average earnings data on Wednesday.
USDJPY has found support at 105.00-105.50 frequently and that level should hold unless geopolitical situations worsen further. Resistance exists at 106.40.
Persistent worries about NAFTA has undermined CAD. UDCAD is now in new territory unseen from last July. USDCAD is now well placed in a sharp uptrend with next level of resistance at 1.3130 and 1.3200. Support lies at 1.3000 and 1.2920.
