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Thursday, March 15th
The EUR/USD pair struggles to find direction this Thursday, trading in a tight range of 1.2365-85. Yesterday, the euro came under renewed pressure, following speech of the ECB President M.Draghi, where the head of the regulator showed concerns over the subdued performance of inflation, while saying that exchange rate of the euro could negatively affect inflation prospects. On the other side, on Wednesday the US published retail sales report, which came below market expectations, thus having exerted pressure on the US dollar, which in turn limited pair’s downside rally. Moreover, concerns over the potential global trade war, triggered by recent US President’s metal tariffs, may hurt greenback positions, as now investors are awaiting for the response from China. In the day ahead, the EU economic calendar won’t bring us anything important, while the US will release Philly Fed index, however, all traders’ attention remains focused on the EU inflation data, which will be available already tomorrow.
The USD/CHF pair tried to recover part of its yesterday’s losses this Thursday, backed by weak US retail sales data, which forced the greenback to retreat across the market. Adding to this, today markets are awaiting for SNB interest rate decision that stops investors from opening any important bets. It is widely expected that the Bank will keep its interest unchanged and won’t make any important changes to its monetary policy, as the Swiss regulator broadly repeats the policy of the ECB, which remains highly accommodative lately. Moreover, the latest Swiss macro data indicates a stable growth of the economy, which again shows that the SNB has no need to make any changes to the current monetary policy. Besides the SNB meeting, investors will also pay attention to Philly Fed manufacturing data, which will be released during the NA session.
The USD/JPY pair recovered its positive tone during the Asian session and returned to the area, located near the level of 106.00. However, the pair continues to remain under pressure this Thursday on the back of several bearish factors, which are dragging the pair into negative direction. Ongoing fears of global trade war, triggered by US President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on China, continue to fuel market’s interest to safe-haven assets, such as the yen. Moreover, seems that traders are still digesting yesterday’s weak US retail sales data, which also contribute to the pair's decline today. However, slight recovery of the pair could be attributed to profit taking action after notable bearish rally of the pair, seen this week. On the data front, today the US will release several regional manufacturing indices, which will bring investors fresh trading opportunities during the NA session, but until then the pair will continue to trace broad market trend for any direction.
Bitcoin remains under pressure lately with no chances for recovery. Today the BTC/USD pair slipped below the level of 8000, which is the lowest level since mid-February. The main reason of negative sentiment, seen on the cryprtomarket, remain regulatory measures form Asian countries, with China “closing the door” on digital cash, banning any activity regarding cryptocurrencies within their borders. However, there were some additional developments around cryptocurrencies, which exerted extra pressure on the cryptomarket. According to the latest reports, search giant Google intends to ban all advertisements for cryptocurrencies and related content starting in June. Therefore, by the moment of writing the BTC/USD pair dropped to the level of 7883.80, while market capitalization of the world’s largest cryptocurrency was 133 billion US dollars, according to data from coinmarketcap.com.
Major events of the day:
SNB Interest Rate Decision – 11.30 (GMT +3)
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index – 15.30 (GMT +3)
Canada ADP Nonfarm Employment Change – 15.30 (GMT +3)
Support and resistance levels for the major currency pairs:
EURUSD S. 1.2309 R. 1.2441
USDJPY S. 105.69 R. 107.05
GBPUSD S. 1.3891 R. 1.4031
USDCHF S. 0.9395 R. 0.9507
AUDUSD S. 0.7816 R. 0.7946
NZDUSD S. 0.7298 R. 0.7370
USDCAD S. 1.2895 R. 1.3005
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