Releases from Australia:
                                                                       Prior    Current
Australian March AiG Performance of Service Index   53.2     53.8
Australian March New Auto Sales              (MoM)   +1.5%

The only data released this morning was from Australia and were rather mixed. Car sales were up over the month but the pace of sales has slowed recently as interest rates and inflation have started to bite into consumers’ pockets.

It comes as a bit of a surprise that the services sector saw a small rise of +0.6 point over March to 53.8. This corrects some of the losses seen over the previous 2 months but remains below the peak of the series in December which comes as no surprise as numbers generally reveal a slowing economy. However, the headline index remains above the 50 level which still indicates a growing economy.

The following economic releases are due today:

February
Euro-zone Retail Sales            (MoM)    +0.2%
Euro-zone Retail Sales             (YoY)    +0.0%

March
Italian Services PMI                               47.2
French Services PMI                               57.3
German Services PMI                             52.5
Euro-zone Services PMI                          51.7
Euro-zone Composite PMI                      51.9
U.K. Services PMI                                  53.3
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims      (29th)      365K
U.S. Continuing Claims          (22nd) 
U.S. Non-Manufacturing ISM Composite   48.5

Hmmm… not quite as expected although the initial direct resumption of Dollar gains was one of my alternatives and on the whole met valid resistance points. What has confused the picture is the slightly deeper than expected pullback from yesterday’s peaks – mostly against the Euro and Pound.

I could just about accept these within a continued bullish structure but there are one or two contra-indications which should be noted. In particular my first impression of the Swissie was that the pullback from 1.0163 actually met a solid support level. However, where there is a slight variance from my scenario is that this peak appears to be too low to imply gains to the 1.0332-52 target.

Thus I think we need to proceed with caution and react on break of key levels. To outline the two scenarios it looks to me that if this Dollar recovery fails now then we should see new highs in the Euro but not necessarily the Swissie. This could take the Pound back to the old 2.0191 high.

On the other side of the coin, direct resumption of the Dollar gains should see the Euro test the 1.5340 low but then recover while the Swissie has a target at 1.0332-52 and the Pound, well, that seems a lot more bearish and this could be another factor that suggests the first scenario calling for a Dollar decline is possible.

Dollar-Yen has done well but there are early signs of exhaustion. I’d still like the 100.81-101.15 area to support for a final test higher to around 103.47-68 but I think that should be enough for now. This does seem to match with Euro-Yen that seems to need to retest the old 161.39 high before turning south again.

Note important support and resistance areas:

         USDJPY        EURUSD       USDCHF       GBPUSD
Res:  103.47-67    1.5750-72    1.0249-91    2.0014-44
Res:  102.90-18    1.5680-00    1.0167-96    1.9919-59

Spt:   102.20-35    1.5575-85    1.0065-05    1.9813-40
Spt:   101.81-15    1.5454-70    0.9939-49    1.9727-67

See Also

• Thinking of switching to trade currencies?
  Find out more about the Forex market

0   15   30   45   60   75   90   105   120   135   150   165   180   195   210   225   240   255   270   285   300   315   330   345   360   375   390   405