Leading Currencies Of 24th December 2015

The U.S. forex markets will be closing early today, due to Christmas Day celebration and trading ought to be minimal. The U.S. stock markets have enjoyed 3 consecutive days of gains in the typical end of year rally. Stock markets have been partially supported by the virtually 4% gains seen in the price of U.S. Oil, with Crude prices clearing to the benefit of $37.00, due to the news that EIA crude records thrust 5.88 million barrels in comparison to a Reuters forecast of a 1.1 million construct (6.98 million barrel difference). The only U.S. data report today is weekly jobless claims, projected to edge up 1k to 272k. U.S. economic reports showed somewhat encouraging individual income data and an upside resilient orders surprise.

European markets will be calm today. The German forex market -http://alpari.com/ has already closed for Christmas, while the U.K. market will be closed on Monday for Boxing Day. The only data on the agenda is from the U.K. with BBA credit approvals.

The GBP has been pulling weight today, rising against the USD. The pound’s run higher following almost a two-week period of outstanding under-performance as markets scaled back BoE tightening anticipations. Cable has been posting gains with markets shrugging off an unforeseen downward revision lower in final UK Q3 GDP data for the last two trading sessions in what continues to be a technological bounce.

The EURUSD dipped under 1.0950, which more or less marks the 50% retracement of the rally from last week’s 1.0800 low. The USD/JPY trading pair trailed to the downward side of the 120.60 support.

Major international Events Today

• JPY Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes showed sluggish wage and capital expenditure growth which is a cause for concern but the good news is that we are hopeful that companies will begin to increase spending immediately emerging economies get better. The BOJ kept policy stable since October, indicating that companies will make use of their profits to boost wages and capital expenditure and assist to start a positive economic cycle. The November 18 - 19 rate review, the BOJ board thrashed out why businesses were slow to take action.

Businesses most likely felt their current record profits were as a result of temporary factors such as the weak yen and low energy rates, and weren’t certain that earnings would stay strong in the future, the minutes illustrated. At the time of writing, the JPY is piercingly stronger against the USD with the USDJPY pair down approximately 50 pips for the session.

• EUR German has Bank Holiday today

• USD Unemployment Claims:

U.S. preliminary jobless claims are expected to be 272k (median 270k) in the week-ended December 19. Ongoing claims are expected to fall to 2,232k for the week - ended December 12.

Prediction risk:

Upward as holiday hiring could hold down claims.

Forex market risk:

The market risk is expected to be downward, since weaker than projected data could slow the path of rate hikes.

• NZD Bank Holiday

• AUD Bank Holiday


If you want to learn how to trade forex and analyze the markets, alpari trading platform and market analyst http://alpari.com/en/analytics/analysts/ have all it takes to shape your trading ideas and help you to understand better how the forex market work. They are one of the best brokers for Nigerian traders.