The Danish government has put renewed focus on the country’s EU opt-outs in the past six months after high-lighting in its policy statement last November that the opt-outs would be put to a referendum some time dur-ing the term of this government. However, the govern-ment did not say when a referendum would be held, or whether all the opt-outs would be put to the vote at the same time. Now, however, the government has announced that it will present a timetable in August for when the Danes will

EURUSD dropped sharply from 1.5818 and formed a cycle top on daily chart. The fall from 1.5818 could possibly be resumption of the long term down trend. Further pullback to test 1.5284 previous low support is expected after consolidation. Initial resistance is at 1.5818, only rise above this level will indicate lengthier correction to the down trend is under way, and delay the resumption of the down trend. For long term analysis, EURUSD broke below 1.5342 long term key support and is now in

Both the US Dollar and the Dow showed remarkable resilience despite more scary figures out this week from the oil sector.  Besides setting a new high above $136 last week, yesterday’s inventory numbers showed yet another drop, this time by 8.8 million barrels (the previous month saw a decline of 5.4 million). The GDP price index held steady at 2.6% for the quarter, meanwhile the preliminary GDP for the same period rose to 0.9%, up from 0.6% the prior quarter.  While many signs still

* A Fed rate hike? Not so fast
* Short-term outlook for the USD
* Rate decisions due from RBA, RBNZ, BOE, ECB
* Key data and events to watch next week
* Commodity currency updates

The greenback picked itself up off the mat, dusted itself off and rallied back from the brink, aided by a surge in US interest rates. Over the course of this past week, US 10 year yields rose 30 points at their highest, before finishing out up 20 bps just above the key 4.00% level. 2 year yields rose over 30 bps, but finished out similarly up about 20 bps and just above the 2.60% level. The proximate cause for the jump in rates was a widely expected upward revision to 1Q US GDP (from +0.6% to 0.9%) and a stronger than expected April durable goods report. The better data came on the heels of several weeks of heightened anti-inflation rhetoric from Fed officials, which was compounded with additional inflation warnings this week from the Fed’s Stern and Fisher, which coalesced into increased prospects for a Fed rate hike. A rate hike?  Full text »

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EURO The euro appreciated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar today as the single currency tested offers around the US$ 1.5550 level and was supported around the $1.5460 level.  Technically, today’s intraday low was just above the 23.6% retracement of the move from $1.6020 to $1.5280.  The common currency gained ground after it was reported that EMU-15 provisional May harmonized consumer price inflation printed at 3.6%, up from 3.3% in April and the same level as March’s rate.  These data

EURO The euro appreciated vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar today as the single currency tested offers around the US$ 1.5550 level and was supported around the $1.5460 level.  Technically, today’s intraday low was just above the 23.6% retracement of the move from $1.6020 to $1.5280.  The common currency gained ground after it was reported that EMU-15 provisional May harmonized consumer price inflation printed at 3.6%, up from 3.3% in April and the same level as March’s rate.  These data

(Chart courtesy of FX Solutions’ FX AccuCharts. Price on 1st pane, Slow Stochastics on 2nd pane; downtrend line in red; Fibonacci retracements in grey; 50- period simple moving average in light blue.) 5/30/2008 – USD/JPY – Price action on the key USD/JPY daily chart, as shown, has reached a critical resistance level. This level is in the form of a significant long-term downtrend line (represented on the chart by the long, red line), which has provided downtrend resistance since the multi-year

The US dollar was initially stronger versus the Euro, Swiss franc, British pound and Japanese yen Friday, but its gains gradually faded into the US session. The Euro gave way a little during the European session upon the release of German retail sales data which turned out to be quite horrid at -1.7% m/m and -1% compared to a year ago. Focus was then shifted to the recessionary-like conditions in the US as weak US economic data came in one after another. US consumer spending slowed in April as

Macroeconomic data from the US market surprised investors with better than expected readings on new home sales which increased by 526 thousand against an expected increase by 522 thousand. Though the increase was slightly more than expected investors do have the tendency to react more emotionally when positive data is published from the ailing real-estate market. Better data was also produced by core durable good orders which increased by 2.5% against an expected increase by a mere 0.4%. What