Forex: USD/CHF calm at 0.9318 ahead of SNB’s Zurbrugg speech

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - The USD/CHF rose to 0.9332 ahead of the European opening, only to retrace back to 0.9318 and risking a move back to the daily low at 0.9309. SNB board member Zurbrugg will be speaking at 09:00 GMT. Ahead of that, investors will be eyeing both Spain and France bond auctions.

In China, FDI rose 1.44% (from -1.35%) in March (YoY), but came in below the expected 1.90%. What pleased investors the most was China house price index: “New home prices rose in 68/70 cities (54 in Dec) while Existing home prices rose in 66/70 cities (46 in Dec). Of the seven largest cities, prices of existing properties accelerated, such as +2.6%/mth in Shanghai, +3.1%/mth in Beijing and +2.3%/mth in Shenzhen. Early signals for April is that top tier city home sales have fallen after property loan/price controls were established in selected provinces, while second tier city home sales remain healthy”, wrote TD Securities analyst Annette Beacher.

“The USD/CHF has held steady at 0.9200 and bounced again to the 55 day moving average at 0.9345. This needs to be overcome in order to negate a sell off to 0.9140, the 78.6% retracement of the move up from February”, wrote Commerzbank analyst Karen Jones.

Apr 18, 2013

Forex Flash: Time to hunker down? - OCBC Bank

Emmanuel Ng of OCBC Bank note that Global markets were revisited by risk aversion on Wednesday, dragging majors lower against USD with European currencies leading the way lower.

Forex Flash: UK retail sales for the GBP and Italy Presidential election for the EUR – TD Securities Of great interest to investors, particularly GBP trading, is the UK retail sales report for March:

xOf great interest to investors, particularly GBP trading, is the UK retail sales report for March: “We see a bigger fall than consensus for retail sales after the outsized jump in February. With another month of miserable weather, there could be a decline of –1.0% or more, compared with consensus expectations for a smaller correction of –0.6%”, wrote TD Securities analyst Annette Beacher, expecting the EUR to be moved by news in regard to the Presidential election in Italy. “The Italian government begins voting to elect a new President. For the first three votes (the government can conduct up to two votes per day), we need to see a 2/3 majority to elect a President, but starting from the fourth vote, we only need to see a simple majority (>50%) to elect someone”, said Beacher, adding that it’s still unclear whether there has been enough agreement between the main parties to get sufficient votes for a single candidate to elect.