Major currency pairs were mostly range-bound in low volume trading as investors were positioning ahead of the holiday period and the year-end.
There were no market-moving news releases today so market participants were still digesting the news of the Fed tapering and the strong US GDP numbers from last week. This kept risk sentiment up today but currency pair direction was mostly driven by profit-taking, which kept the US dollar under some pressure.
From Europe, there were no tier-one data releases, just Italian consumer confidence which fell in December. In the early US session, data showed US personal spending was in line with expectations. Consumer spending in November rose the most in five months, suggesting an improvement in the US economy.
The dollar showed little reaction to the US data as there were no surprises and profit-taking has mostly driven this pair following the Fed announcement on December 18 that it would begin reducing its bond buying program in January. USDJPY slid 0.11% to 103.93 in today’s European session.
EURUSD was mostly range-bound throughout European trading hours, but received a boost towards the end to finally reach the 1.37 handle, ending with a 0.13% gain at 1.3702.
GBPUSD was flat all day, finding strong resistance at 1.6372. The pair ended at 1.6336, down 0.09%.
Markets are focused on more US data later today which is due to show the revised Thompson Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index increased in December.
Major currency pairs were mostly range-bound in low volume trading as investors were positioning ahead of the holiday period and the year-end.
There were no market-moving news releases today so market participants were still digesting the news of the Fed tapering and the strong US GDP numbers from last week. This kept risk sentiment up today but currency pair direction was mostly driven by profit-taking, which kept the US dollar under some pressure.
From Europe, there were no tier-one data releases, just Italian consumer confidence which fell in December. In the early US session, data showed US personal spending was in line with expectations. Consumer spending in November rose the most in five months, suggesting an improvement in the US economy.
The dollar showed little reaction to the US data as there were no surprises and profit-taking has mostly driven this pair following the Fed announcement on December 18 that it would begin reducing its bond buying program in January. USDJPY slid 0.11% to 103.93 in today’s European session.
EURUSD was mostly range-bound throughout European trading hours, but received a boost towards the end to finally reach the 1.37 handle, ending with a 0.13% gain at 1.3702.
GBPUSD was flat all day, finding strong resistance at 1.6372. The pair ended at 1.6336, down 0.09%.
Markets are focused on more US data later today which is due to show the revised Thompson Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index increased in December.
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