Mid-Day Report: Markets Stay in Range after Mixed US Data

Market remains rather quiet today, searching for direction. Mixed data from US didn’t trigger much volatility neither. One the one hand, Empire Statement Manufacturing index dropped to record low of -25.4 in Nov but was slightly better than expectation of -26. On the other hand, industrial production unexpectedly grew 1.3% mom in Oct, much better than consensus of -0.4% contraction. Capacity utilization was unchanged at 76.4%.

Technically speaking, though, firstly, Dollar index once again fails to take out 87.87/98 resistance level and retreats again. As mentioned before, EUR/USD and AUD/USD are likely still staying in consolidation. More importantly, GBP/USD’s recovery today argues that some more consolidation is underway. After all, some more pullback is now in favor for the greenback in short term before resuming recent up trend. Elsewhere, DOW opens mildly lower. Crude oil and gold are both staying in tight range so far.

Released earlier, Eurozone trade deficit narrowed to -5.6b in Sep. UK Right move house prices fell -2.9% mom, -7.1% yoy in Nov, steeper than prior month’s -4.9% yoy. Australian retail sales rose less than expected by a mere 0.1% qoq in Q3 even though it’s still an improvement over Q2’s -0.6% contraction. Japanese Q3 GDP contracted -0.1% qoq, -0.4% annualized, worse than expectation of 0% qoq, 0.1% annualized. Q2’s figures were also revised down from -0.7% qoq and -3.0% annualized to -0.9% and -3.7% respectively. Two successive quarters of contraction in GDP confirmed that Japan is technically in the first recession since 2001. Tertiary industry index dropped -0.6% in Sep, below expectation of -0.5%.
BY ActionForex