Forex: EUR/USD muted after German data

The bloc currency paid no attention to the annualized contraction of the Factory Orders in Germany, falling 1.8% during December and growing 0.8% on a monthly basis, below the +0.9% expected albeit bettering November’s -1.8%.

There are no more releases in the euro area, while MBA Mortgage Applications would see the light across the pond, ahead of the weekly report on crude inventories by EIA.

EUR/USD is now retreating 0.37% at 1.3532 with the next support at 1.3522 (MA10d) ahead of 1.3459 (low Feb5) and then 1.3415 (low Jan.29).
On the other hand, a surpass of 1.3598 (high Feb.5) would open the door to 1.3620 (intraday support Feb.4) and finally 1.3660 (high Feb.4).

Feb 6, 2013

Forex Flash: KRW remains strong play vs. JPY – Westpac

According to the Westpac Strategy Team, “From the perspective of the yen, it seems likely that in the near term that currencies such as KRW will maintain a fairly strong positive correlation with JPY (i.e. upside in USD/JPY will continue to bias USD/KRW higher) – rhetoric around JPY/ KRW weakness from Korean officials still appears to be quite strong.”

European markets down ahead of tomorrow’s ECB

The German DAX 30 (-0.15%), the French CAC 40 (-0.46%), the Italian FTSE MIB (-0.46%) and the Spanish IBEX 35 (-0.48%) are down on Wednesday, one day ahead of the ECB monetary policy meeting. Many investors are waiting for a less usual approach by Draghi, as he's not fond of talking about exchange rates. However, there's been a lot of fuss about a strong euro, and yesterday's speech by Hollande in favor of an explicit exchange rate policy for the euro zone might force ECB's Draghi to comment on the issue.