Risk Sentiment Remains Strong, Most Currency Pairs Steady Ahead of NFP - 21.10.2013

Concerns over the economic cost of the U.S government shutdown still weigh on the US dollar which inched to a more than 8-month low at 79.45 late on Friday session but earlier today recovered slightly to 79.69. The greenback collapsed after an eventful week that brought biggest economy to default brinkmanship and now is looking ahead for the September employment data, released tomorrow because they were postponed due to fiscal impasse.

At the same time, risk appetite gets stronger as Federal Reserve chances for tapering are fading even for early in 2014 and that was coupled by upbeat earnings report with biggest surprise up to now the Google earnings. Today we look ahead for McDonald’s (S-MCD) earnings release with EPS consensus standing at $1.51. Asset tapering would also greatly depend on tomorrow’s NFP report, market participants are expecting a 180K increase during September.

In Asian trading today NIKKEI 225 rose by 0.91% to 14,693.57, Hang Seng is advancing by 0.53% and S&P/ASX 200 climbed by 0.57%. That has underpinned Australian dollar trading against the greenback to reach cap at 0.9677 and stay close to that early on Monday. The currency pair remains in strong upside formation and its intraday bias seem bullish thus we could see an upside breakout and continuation of the trend.

AUDUSD

Elsewhere, the safer Japanese yen has been weakening in the last days of trading due to the improving risk sentiment also the Yen was weighed by more than estimated Trade Deficit widening in September. As a result we saw the USDJPY trading in sideways mostly between 98.16/97.58. Range trading characterizes other currency pairs as well due to traders looking towards the major NFP announcement on Tuesday. The EURUSD is fluctuating near its 10-month peak between 1.3701/1.3656 and the GBPUSD is consolidating in 1.6224/1.6142.