September 18, 2018

The CHF is the strongest currency as North American traders enter for the day. The JPY is the weakest. However, the pairs are relatively bunched together as some of the trending pairs from earlier in the day, have given up some of the moves.

The GBPJPY AUDJPY, NZDJPY are still up but well off the highs. The low to high trading ranges are mostly contained vs. the USD with the exception of the NZDUSD which has reached it's 22 day average trading range around 69 pips. The GBPUSD rallied early but has shown some corrective action in the European session after taking out the high from Friday by only two pips.

The GBPUSD pair is trading near the low for the day at 1.3532. That happens to be the high corrective price post Brexit before Friday's push higher. Key support at the start of the NY trading day.

A snapshot of other markets at the start of the NA day shows:

  • Spot gold down -$7.35 to $1312.81. It is working it's way back to a retest of the $1300 level
  • WTI crude oil is down -$0.26 ore -0.52% to $49.63
  • US yields are a touch higher. 2 year 1.3886%, up 0.8 bp. 5 year 1.814%, up 0.8 bp. 10 year 2.2128%, up 1 bp. 30 year 2.778%, up 0.8 bp
  • US stock futures are up in pre-market trading: S&P is up 5.00 poitns. Nasdaq futures are up 8.25 points and the Dow futures are up 57 points
  • European stocks are higher: German Dax up 0.25%. France Cac up 0.25%. UK FTSE up 0.4%. Spain Ibex up 0.55%
  • European 10 year yields are mixed. Germany 0.442%, up 1 bp. France 0.715%, unchanged. UK 1.303%, unchanged. Spain 1.589%, down -2 bp. Italy 2.052%, -2.6 bp. Portugal 2.549%, -2.5 bp.

BOE Carney speaks at 11 AM ET/1500 GMT at the IMF. The GBP rallied strongly last week after Carney/BOE comments/statement.

The market is gearing up for the Wednesday FOMC statement and expected start of taper of QE balance sheet size.