EUR/USD fell very deep today, mostly before any fundamental news from the U.S. were released, as the pessimism on the global stock markets mirrored itself onto the Forex market. The currency pair is now trading near 1.3311.
Personal income fell by 0.2% in February in U.S., following 0.2% growth in January (revised down from 0.4%) and coming out slightly worst than the forecasted 0.1% drop. Personal spending rose by 0.2% that month, following the same gain in January (revised down from 0.6%) and coming out also slightly worse than the expected 0.3% growth.
Michigan sentiment index in March was upwardly revised from the previous reading of 56.6 to 57.3, signaling some ground bottom in the recent fall of this index.
Euro traded slightly stronger against the dollar today before and after the reports that only confirmed that the U.S. is still in recession. EUR/USD is currently trading near 1.3591.
Initial jobless claims rose from 644k to 652k last week, while they were expected to go up only to 650k.
Final Q4 GDP report showed a revised decline of 6.3% (compared to 6.2% preliminary report). The economic analysts expected a decline by 6.6% to be reported today.
EUR/USD rose today for the first time in four days as the U.S. fundamental news came out better than expected and spurred optimism in the Forex and stocks traders. At this moment EUR/USD is trading near 1.3549 after reaching as low as 1.3417 earlier today.
Durable goods orders increased by 3.4% in February after the revised decline by 7.3% in January (revised down from -5.2%). The market analysts expected this indicator to continue going down at 2.4% last month.
New home sales rose for the first month since June 2008 this February in United States — from 322k to 337k seasonally-adjusted annual rate. They were estimated to go down to 300k.
4XP (or Forex Place) is the latest addition to the list of the Forex brokers on my site. It’s the MetaTrader 4 Forex broker registered in British Virgin Islands and only recently went on-line with its services. 4XP’s highlights:
Moneybookers, Neteller and EcoCard for deposits and withdrawals
Tamley Global Markets is a Forex broker that was added to my site today. It’s an Irish broker with the custom advanced trading platform that is capable of running several types of expert advisors and can easily automate your trading systems. It went on-line in 2007 and is regulated by Financial Services Authority of United Kingdom. TGM’s highlights:
I added a new Forex broker’s description to the site today — Plus500 — a rather new on-line broker, which is currently offering big bonus incentives for the real account traders. It offers $20 as free bonus (can’t be withdrawn until certain amount of lots is traded) on an account opening and also up to 30% on your first deposit (upon trading a certain amount of lots). Other Plus500’s highlights:
I’ve updated the MT4 indicators section of the site. Each indicator now gets a separate page with the detailed description of the indicator, the explanation for each of its input parameters, the screenshot of the with the attached indicator and the basic trading system that can be used with this indicator. They can also be downloaded in both .mq4 and .zip files from those pages. I hope this will help a lot of Forex traders who weren’t able to use those indicators previously. Here is the list of all 15 indicators that are currently presented on the site:
EUR/USD continued its seemingly unstoppable growth today after the Federal Reserve pledged to buy the U.S. treasuries with the printed money yesterday. The fundamental releases were quite mixed today and couldn’t affect the dollar’s fate. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3698.
Initial jobless claims were at 646k last week — down from 658k reported for a previous week and better than 655k expected.
Leading indicators index decreased by 0.4% in February, following 0.4% growth in January, but they still performed better than the expected decline by 0.6%.
Philadelphia Fed index rose from -41.3 to -35 in March. It was expected to move up to -39.
EUR/USD posted one of its biggest daily gains in history today as the FOMC’s press release stated that the Federal Reserve will have to buy the long-term U. S. Treasury securities worth of $300 billion and it means that the money will be printed. The perspective of the increased amount of dollars pushed dollar down on Forex and it lost more than 3% today. EUR/USD is currently trading near 1.3441.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 0.5% in February in U.S. This growth followed the 0.2% gain in January and 0.3% forecast for February.
The U. S. current account deficit decreased to $132.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. That’s less than $181.3 billion reported for the third quarter (revised negatively from $174.1 billion) and better than the median forecast of $137.1 billion.
Crude oil inventories increased by 2 million barrels last week and are still above the upper limit of the average range for this time of the year.
FOMC left the rates unchanged but issued another «stimulus package» promise for the U.S. economy. Unfortunately for the U.S. dollar it will flood the global financial system with the greenback:
To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve?s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion. Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.
EUR/USD unexpectedly declined for the first day in six after the housing report that was released in U.S. today showed that the American economy will probably be one of the first to recover from the crisis. The euro declined against the dollar in spite of the PPI report that disappointed the USD bulls. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.2954.
Building permits were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547k in February — that’s more than 531k in January and 500k estimated for the month being reported. Housing starts rose sharply from 477k (revised up from 466k) to 583k in February, while they were expected to decline to 450k. That was the first positive monthly change for both of those values since June 2008.
Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 0.1% in February, following 0.8% increase in January and 0.4% estimate for the last month.
EUR/USD went up today for a fifth day in a row after a strong weekly negative gap. The fundamental statistics that was released in U.S. today was extremely negative both for dollar and the global economy. EUR/USD now trades near 1.3003 after reaching as high as 1.3070 today.
NY Empire State manufacturing index fell to a new record low this March and is now at -38.2, below the February’s -34.65 and the median estimate of -32.
Net long-term purchases of the U.S. securities were at -$43 billion in February after $34.7 billion reported for January. That means that the U. S. Treasury notes are no longer popular in the world and the U.S. dollar may lose a good portion of its support. Although the numbers are for February, they may still strongly influence the Forex market.
Industrial production decreased by 1.4% in February, following 1.9% drop in January and expectations of 1.2% decline. Capacity utilization went down from 71.9% to 70.9%, which is also worse than the expected decline to 71.1%.
I’ve already written about VPS hosting and how it can help the Forex traders. Now I’ve added a separate section on the site that is dedicated solely to the VPS hosting from the view of the average trader. You’ll find the detailed descriptions of various VPS providers, you will be able to compare their prices, features and limitations, read the reviews by other traders, write your own reviews about such hosting services and rate them according to your personal experience. Forex VPS section will traders to find the best solution to host their MetaTrader platform, expert advisors or any other kind of trading system. If you have some suggestions regarding this section or want to offer your own VPS hosting service to be listed — leave a commentary here or at my forums.
EUR/USD continued to grow for the fourth day today despite the better than expected U.S. trade balance deficit and the negative export/import price changes. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.2907 after reaching as high as 1.2956 earlier — the highest level since February 23.
Export prices fell by 0.1% in February in U.S. after increasing by 0.5% a month before. Average import prices went down by 0.2% last month that compares to 1.2% decline in January.
U.S. trade balance deficit decreased from $39.9 billion to $36 billion in January as the imports continued to fall faster than the exports. It was expected to decrease only to $38 billion.
EUR/USD stopped growing today and the dollar gained slightly against the euro for the first time in three days after the fundamental reports from the United States showed that the world’s biggest economy is still in recession. Currently EUR/USD is trading near 1.2767 after reaching as low as 1.2731 today.
Initial jobless claims were at 654k last week — up from 645k reported for a previous week (revised up from 639k). They were above the average estimate of 644k.
Retails sales went down by 0.1% in February in U.S. — better than 0.5% decline expected by the analysts. January result was revised from 1% growth to 1.8% growth.
Business inventories decreased by 1.1% in February — worse than 1% forecasted drop and slightly better than 1.3% drop in January.
EUR/USD went up for a second day today and the gain is currently the biggest one since the early February. The today’s reports, that were quite neutral, haven’t had any important impact on the actual trading. EUR/USD is trading near 1.2815 currently.
Crude oil inventories advanced by 0.7 million barrels last week after decreasing by the same amount a week before.
U.S. treasury budget deficit was at $192.8 billion in February — worse than $175.6 billion deficit reported in February 2008.Analysts expected $205 billion deficit from this report.
Euro traded below its opening level against the U.S. dollar today as the fundamental reports in the United States were bad enough to raise the risk-aversion, but not bad enough to press on the greenback. In addition, the European Central Bank cut the interest rate from 2% to 1.5%, signaling that the further reductions are still possible. EUR/USD is now trading at 1.2536.
Nonfarm business productivity change for the fourth quarter of 2008 was revised from 3.2% to -0.4%; it was expected to be revised to 1.1%. The year-to-year change of 2.8% was left the same after revision.
Initial jobless claims were above 600k for the fifth week. Last week they were at 639k — that’s 31k less than 670k reported for the previous week and slightly better than the forecast of 650k.
Factory orders fell for the sixth month in a row in January — by 4.5% — worse than in December (3.9% decline) and worse than the analysts expected (3.5% decline).
