- SWFX market sentiment is 51% bullish
- Trader pending orders are 61% to sell
- Pair opened Friday's session at 1.0611
- Upcoming Events: US Core Retail Sales, US PPI; US Retail Sales; US Core PPI; US FOMC Member Harker Speaks; Preliminary UoM Consumer Sentiment
The number of Americans filing for unemployment aid advanced less than expected last week, official figures showed on Thursday. According to the Labor Department, initial claims rose 10,000 to 247,000 during the week ending January 7. This marked the 97th consecutive week that claims remained below the 300,000 level, the longest streak since 1973. Thursday's report also showed that continuous claims dropped 29,000 to 2.09 million in the last week of 2016. Separately, the Labor Department reported that import prices climbed 0.4% in December, following the previous month's 0.2% decline. The increase was mainly driven by rising petroleum prices that jumped 7.9% during the reported period. On an annual basis, import prices increased 1.8%, the biggest rise since March 2012, after climbing 0.1% year-over-year in November.
Meanwhile, excluding petroleum, prices dropped 0.2% month-over-month in December, compared to the prior month's unchanged reading. The stronger US Dollar was the major reason behind the December decline. Over the last year, the Greenback appreciated greatly against the currencies of the US main trading partners, advancing 4.4%. Though it experienced the largest gains in the wake of Donald Trump's election. The major US stock markets ignored today's positive data, following Trump's disappointing press conference.
Upcoming fundamental releases: A data pack we plan to cover
Today will be a good day for volatility traders, as they finally get to do some work. As it is accustomed, the US data will impact the strength of the US Dollar, which will dictate exchange rates and commodity prices all across the board. The data release will occur at 13:30 GMT. It will consist of the core and simple Retail Sales and PPI's on a month to month change. Moreover, the Dukascopy team will cover this data release on the live webinar. However, that is not all that can be watched today, as at 14:30 GMT the FOMC member Harker is set to give a speech. In addition, at 15:00 GMT the Preliminary UoM Consumer Sentiment will be released.
EUR/USD remains above 1.06
Daily Chart: After the jump, which the EUR/USD currency exchange rate experienced in the past few trading sessions, the pair reduced volatility above the 1.06 mark on Friday. Although the rate managed to burst above the resistance cluster near 1.0650, which kept it down on, on Thursday, the rate is back below it. That means that the cluster is set to keep the rate down. Due to that it can be assumed that during the session the rate might surge until it reaches the 1.0650 mark, and afterwards it will bounce off of it and move lower to end the session close to the opening price.Daily chart
Hourly chart: The hourly chart reveals that it was not the upper trend line of the medium term ascending channel or the weekly R1 at 1.0654, which stopped the Euro's surge against the US Dollar. The rate's movement was reversed by the upper Bollinger band on the hourly chart near 1.0675 level. As the Bollinger band has moved lower in the recent twenty four hours, the resistance cluster has become now more resilient. That strengthens the hypothesis made of a surge and a following decline during the rest of the day.
Hourly chart
Traders resume being almost neutral
SWFX traders were neutral bullish on Friday, as 51% of open positions were long. Meanwhile, 61% of trader set up orders were to sell the Euro.
OANDA traders remain almost neutral, as 51.62% of open EUR/USD positions were long on Friday. Meanwhile, SAXO bank traders decreased their bearish outlook, as 58.95% of open positions were short, compared to 61.07% previously.