Releases from Australia:
                                                         Forecast          Actual
March AiG Performance of Construction     53.9 (prior)     48.4
February Trade Balance               AUD   -2.5bn          -3.29bn
February Building Approvals        (MoM)  +0.0%           +0.1%
March ANZ Job Advertisements               -2.1% (prior) - 0.7%  

A 10 month low in new orders hit the AiG Performance of Construction Index to send it tumbling 5.5 points to 48.4 which indicates a contracting market. The AiG commented, “Interest rate hikes, the rise in the cost of funds and falling consumer sentiment are clearly taking their toll on the industry, and with new orders now at their lowest level in 10 months, we are likely to see further weakness ahead.”

In other releases job advertisements dropped for a 2nd month in a row with March declining by -0.7% over the month. The annual figures still look positive at 20.8% but that Australia has passed its peak will not be disputed following the series of interest rate hikes and the softness in overseas demand due to the global slowdown.

It is no surprise then that the trade deficit widened considerably, although it was much more than consensus forecast.

Releases from Japan:
                                                     Forecast     Actual
February Leading Economic Index (P)  50.0%      50.0%
February Coincident Index (P)            44.4%      44.4%

The following economic releases are due today:

February
French Trade Balance                  EUR     -3.7bn
German Industrial Production     (MoM)    - 0.4%
German Industrial Production      (YoY)    +5.3%
U.S. Consumer Credit                  USD      5.5bn

March
Swiss Unemployment Rate                       2.6%

April
Euro-zone Sentix Investor Confidence        +0.2

Friday didn’t quite have the outcome I had expected. From the basic break lower in the Dollar it does tend to suggest that the downside should come under further pressure but I can’t say that the break has developed in a particularly clean manner.

Never-the-less, with the break I shall stick cautiously with a Dollar bearish outlook but within that my impression was that we should see an initial pullback and that does seem to be occurring this morning. What we shall need to do is watch critical Dollar resistances and work our way from there. As I write we do seem to be very close to these resistance areas.

I should add that once the pullback is complete the resumption of the losses should be quite swift and any deviance from this would begin to suggest that the Dollar could resume its recent modest strength.

Note important support and resistance areas:

         USDJPY        EURUSD       USDCHF       GBPUSD
Res:  103.57-86    1.5810-57    1.0169-17    2.0030-47
Res:  102.61-93    1.5700-40    1.0120-30    1.9910-55

Spt:   101.70-06    1.5620-41    1.0050-80    1.9813-40
Spt:   100.87-29    1.5510-48    0.9950-90    1.9757-88

See Also

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